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A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.3–8 solar masses ()) in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius immense and the surface temperature low, from 5,000 K and lower. The appearance of the red giant is from yellow-orange to red, including the spectral types K and M, but also class S stars and most carbon stars. The most common red giants are stars nearing the end of the so-called red-giant-branch (RGB) but are still fusing hydrogen into helium in a shell surrounding a degenerate helium core. Other 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 sometimes with a hydrogen burning shell just beyond that. The nearest red giant is Gamma Crucis, 88 light years away, but the orange giant Arcturus is described by some as a red giant and it is 36 light years away. ==Characteristics== Red giants are stars that have exhausted the supply of hydrogen in their cores and switched to 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 reddish-orange hue. Despite the lower energy density of their envelope, red giants are many times more luminous than the Sun because of their great size. Red-giant-branch stars have luminosities about a hundred to several hundred times that of the Sun (), spectral types of K or M, have surface temperatures of 3,000–4,000 K, and radii about 20–100 times the Sun (). Stars on the horizontal branch are hotter, whereas asymptotic-giant-branch stars are around ten times more luminous, but both these types are less common than those of the red-giant branch. Among the asymptotic-giant-branch stars belong the carbon stars of type C-N and late C-R, produced when carbon and other elements are convected to the surface in what is called a dredge-up. The first dredge-up occurs during hydrogen shell burning on the red-giant branch, but does not produce dominant carbon at the surface. The second, and sometimes third, dredge up occurs during helium shell burning on the asymptotic-giant branch and convects carbon to the surface in sufficiently massive stars. The stellar limb of a red giant is not sharply-defined, contrary to their depiction in many illustrations. Rather, due to the very low mass density of the envelope, such stars lack a well-defined photosphere, and the body of the star gradually transitions into a 'corona'.〔(Measurements of the frequency of starspots on red giant stars )〕〔(orange sphere of the sun )〕 The coolest red giants have complex spectra, with molecular lines, masers, and sometimes emission. Another noteworthy feature of red giants is that, unlike Sun-like stars whose photospheres have a large number of small convection cells (solar granules), red-giant photospheres, as well as those of red supergiants, have just a few large cells, whose feature cause the variations of brightness so common on both types of stars.〔 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Red giant」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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