Red-giant branch temperature and luminosity are very similar at the cool end of the horizontal branch. These stars form the red clump at about 5,000 K and . Less massive hydrogen envelopes cause the stars to take up a hotter and less luminous position on the horizontal branch, and this effect occurs more readily at low metallicity so that old metal-poor clusters show the most pronounced horizontal branches. Stars initially more massive than have non-degenerate helium cores on the red-giant branch. These stars become hot enough to start triple-alpha fusion before they reach the tip of the red-giant branch and before the
Giant star convection in the outer layers, triggers a second dredge-up, and causes a dramatic increase in size and luminosity. This is the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) analogous to the red-giant branch but more luminous, with a hydrogen-burning shell contributing most of the energy. Stars only remain on the AGB for around a million years, becoming increasingly unstable until they exhaust their fuel, go through a planetary nebula phase, and then become a carbon–oxygen white dwarf. Main-sequence stars with masses above about are already very luminous and they move horizontally across the HR diagram when they leave the main sequence, briefly becoming