Will Big Stars Turn Into Red Supergiants or Red Giants?

[Odette]

Hey.
Medium sized stars will turn into red giants.
What about big sized stars? As far as I know they will turn into red SUPERgiants. But, will they pass through a red giant phase before it happens?
In conclusion, will a big star turn firstly into a red giant and secondly into a red supergiant, or will it turn only into a red supergiant?

 

[Vanadium 50]

There are whole books on this. They tend to be more quantitative than just "big" and "medium". Also, they and you probably disagree on how big is "medium" - the most common kind of star, red dwarfs, don't always become red giants, and the threshold is right about at the average star mass.

 

[jim mcnamara]

Look at this diagram, it shows how stars evolve over time, depending on the "starting" mass of the star
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/H/Hertzsprung-Russell+Diagram

 

[snorkack]

Look at this diagram, it shows how stars evolve over time, depending on the "starting" mass of the star
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/H/Hertzsprung-Russell+Diagram

No, it does not.
It shows only the present appearance of star, aand gives no information of its history, or mass.
Some versions of this graph add paths to depict star history - but no such are added to the version in the link above.

 

[jim mcnamara]

@snorkack
Does the explanation not help? Please post what you think is more explanatory. That would be by far more useful to everyone ...than debating what I linked to. Thanks in advance for for your help.

 

[snorkack]

@snorkack
Does the explanation not help? Please post what you think is more explanatory. That would be by far more useful to everyone ...than debating what I linked to. Thanks in advance for for your help.

Like this:
http://web.missouri.edu/~speckan/witch-stuff/Research/chapter2/node4.html