Betelgeuse

Read on to learn more about one of these stars. Then be sure to look in the night sky and find it glowing orange. When we encounter large objects like mountains, super oil tankers, and skyscrapers we are impressed with their scale. When we look at the mass of our sun we know that 1.3 millions Earths can fit inside.

Arcturus is a red giant star located at around 36.7 light-years away from the Sun. It is the brightest star in the constellation of Boötes. It is also the fourth brightest star in the night sky, yet the brightest in the northern hemisphere. Another example of a red giant is Gacrux.

88.71 light years

Unlike its blue-white neighbors in the constellation, Gacrux is a bright red giant. Gacrux is also considered the nearest red giant to Earth, at a distance of roughly 88 light years.

Gacrux is the closest red giant star near the solar system, situated at around 88.6 light-years / 27.2 parsecs away from the Sun. Gacrux is only 50% more massive than our sun.

A Red Giant star is formed when a star like our sun, or one larger, runs out of its hydrogen fuel. This process creates the energy that the star needs to resist the force of gravity that is trying to crush the star together, and also causes the star to light up.

Gacrux is also considered the nearest red giant to Earth, at a distance of roughly 88 light years.

3,626 K

However, Gacrux may have also already gone through the helium burning stage and it may now be moving up the AGB as a “second-ascent” giant. Gacrux is classified as a semi-regular variable star with multiple pulsation periods in the range from 12.1 to 104.9 days and amplitude changes from 0.015 to 0.027 magnitudes.

Acrux

277.2 light years

Mimosa (star)

100 million years

Blue-white Mimosa (or Beta Crucis, or Becrux) is the 19th brightest star in all the heavens. It is the second-brightest star in the constellation Crux the Southern Cross.

Beta Crucis, also called Mimosa or Becrux, second brightest star (after Alpha Crucis) in the southern constellation Crux (the Southern Cross) and the 20th brightest star in the sky. Beta Crucis is a binary of two B-type stars about 280 light-years from Earth.

Deneb is circumpolar as seen from locations of about 45 degrees north latitude, roughly the northern tier of U.S. states. In other words, from the northern U.S. and similar latitudes, Deneb never sets but instead circles round and round the pole star. It cannot ever be seen south of about 45 degrees south latitude.

Blue supergiants are supergiant stars (class I) of spectral type O. They are extremely hot and bright, with surface temperatures of between 20,000 – 50,000 degrees Celsius. The best known example is Rigel, the brightest star in the constellation of Orion.

10.01 million years

Deneb is a supergiant (as noted by its luminosity class: Ia), which means it has a huge radius. So even though there are stars hotter than Deneb on the list, Deneb must be bigger than them. What is significant about Star 2? Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky.

Red stars

Brightness stellar classification. So M stars are the smallest, O stars are the biggest, and the luminosity ranges from I (brightest) to VI (less bright) and D (white dwarfs). As mentioned, the Sun is a type G2V star.

Venus

210,000 K

The colour of a star is determined by its temperature, the hottest stars are blue and the coolest stars are red. The Sun has a surface temperature of 5,500 degrees Celcius, its colour appears yellow.

8,480 light years