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 giant stars develop into supergiants that follow an evolutionary track that takes them back and forth horizontally over the HR diagram, at the right end constituting red supergiants. These usually end their life as a type II supernova. The most massive stars can become Wolf–Rayet stars without becoming giants or supergiants at all. Red giants with known planets: the M-type HD 208527, HD 220074 and, as of February 2014, a few tens of known K-giants including Pollux, Gamma Cephei and Iota Draconis. Although traditionally it has been suggested the evolution of a star into a red giant will render its planetary