After using up its hydrogen-1, the star becomes a red giant. It will start fusing helium-4 into heavier elements. It may also fuse heavier elements, to get other elements that are yet heavier.
No. That is when stars run out of hydrogen. They then have helium for fuel.
Because they begin to run out of fuel
The main fuel for red giant stars is helium. In the core of red giant stars, hydrogen fusion has ceased, and as the star evolves, it starts fusing helium into heavier elements like carbon and oxygen. This process produces the energy that sustains the star's outer layers and causes it to expand and cool, creating a red giant.
When compared to the other stars, the Red Giant Star are very minute. There are other stars that are very large by far as compared to the Red giant stars.
Giant stars are commonly referred to as "giant" stars because of their large size compared to main sequence stars like the Sun. These stars are in a later stage of their evolution and have expanded in size due to the depletion of their core's hydrogen fuel.
All red giant stars will start helium fusion when their core is compressed.
Main sequence star: hydrogen-1. Red giants: helium-4.
Smaller stars, like red dwarfs, typically live much longer than giant stars. While giant stars have shorter lifespans due to their rapid consumption of nuclear fuel, smaller stars can burn for billions of years. For example, a red dwarf can last for tens to hundreds of billions of years, while a massive star might only live for a few million years before exhausting its fuel and ending in a supernova. Thus, smaller stars have a significantly longer lifespan compared to their giant counterparts.
Stars like the sun become red giants as they exhaust their core hydrogen fuel, causing the core to contract and the outer layers to expand. This expansion results in the outer layers cooling and emitting more red light, hence the term "red giant." The star's outer envelope eventually expands to a point where it engulfs the inner planets in the solar system.
Yes, when stars get old and start to run out of fuel in their core, they expand and cool down, causing their outer layers to appear red. This phase is known as the red giant phase.
No, Jupiter is not a red giant. Jupiter is a gas giant planet in our solar system, primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, while red giants are much larger dying stars that have exhausted their hydrogen fuel and expanded.
No, red giant stars are not the largest stars in the universe. There are stars known as supergiant and hypergiant stars that are even larger than red giants. These stars can be hundreds to thousands of times larger than our Sun.