Red giant and helium core flash. When the ascent of the red-giant branch ends they puff off their outer layers much like a post-asymptotic-giant-branch star and then become a white dwarf. Very low mass stars are fully convective and may continue to fuse hydrogen into helium for up to a trillion years until only a small fraction of the entire star is hydrogen. Luminosity and temperature steadily increase during this time, just as for more-massive main-sequence stars, but the length of time involved means that the temperature eventually increases by about 50% and the luminosity by around 10 times. Eventually the level
Red supergiant star than a hotter supergiant. For example, Alpha Herculis is classified as a giant star with a radius of while Epsilon Pegasi is a K2 supergiant of only . Although red supergiants are much cooler than the Sun, they are so much larger that they are highly luminous, typically . There is an upper limit to the luminosity of a red supergiant at around . Stars above this luminosity would be too unstable and simply don't form. Red supergiants have masses between about and . Main-sequence stars more massive than about do not expand and cool to become red supergiants. Red