Red giant red giants are the red-clump stars in the cool half of the horizontal branch, fusing helium into carbon in their cores via the triple-alpha process; and the asymptotic-giant-branch (AGB) stars with a helium burning shell outside a degenerate carbon–oxygen core, and a hydrogen burning shell just beyond that. Red giants are stars that have exhausted the supply of hydrogen in their cores and have begun thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen in a shell surrounding the core. They have radii tens to hundreds of times larger than that of the Sun. However, their outer envelope is lower in temperature, giving them a
Gas giant Hot Jupiters are class IV or V. A cold hydrogen-rich gas giant more massive than Jupiter but less than about () will only be slightly larger in volume than Jupiter. For masses above , gravity will cause the planet to shrink (see degenerate matter). Kelvin–Helmholtz heating can cause a gas giant to radiate more energy than it receives from its host star. Although the words "gas" and "giant" are often combined, hydrogen planets need not be as large as the familiar gas giants from the Solar System. However, smaller gas planets and planets closer to their star will lose atmospheric