Tip of the red-giant branch result is a sharp discontinuity in the evolutionary track of the star on the HR diagram. This discontinuity is called the tip of the red-giant branch. When distant stars at the TRGB are measured in the I-band (in the infrared), their luminosity is somewhat insensitive to their composition of elements heavier than helium (metallicity) or their mass; they are a standard candle with an I-band absolute magnitude of –4.0±0.1. This makes the technique especially useful as a distance indicator. The TRGB indicator uses stars in the old stellar populations (Population II). Tip of the red-giant branch Tip of the red-giant
Gas giant electrical conductor. The gas giants' cores are thought to consist of heavier elements at such high temperatures (20,000 K) and pressures that their properties are poorly understood. The defining differences between a very low-mass brown dwarf and a gas giant (estimated at about 13 Jupiter masses) are debated. One school of thought is based on formation; the other, on the physics of the interior. Part of the debate concerns whether "brown dwarfs" must, by definition, have experienced nuclear fusion at some point in their history. The term "gas giant" was coined in 1952 by the science fiction writer James Blish