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The Difference Between a Star & a Super Giant

Stars are classified using the letters O, B, A, F, G, K and M. This refers to the spectral type of main sequence stars, which account for about 90 percent of stars. Other types of stars which originate from these main-sequence stars include giant stars, white dwarfs and super giant stars. Super giants are the largest of them all.
  1. Size

    • The most obvious and notable difference between regular stars and super giants is, as the name suggests, size. Super giant stars are simply enormous, completely dwarfing stars like our sun. The smallest super giants are at least 30 times the radius of the sun. The largest can be as much as 500 times bigger than the sun!

    Life

    • Super giants are main spectrum stars at the end of their lives, like regular giant stars. They typically have about 10 million years left in them before they will burn out. They are fast burning stars which have relatively little density. Most stars become giants or super giants while a tiny minority simply explode in the form of a supernova or turn into a white dwarf (the most common).

    Luminosity

    • Due to the vast size of super giants, they put out an enormous amount of light. A super giant can be anything up to 1 million times brighter than the sun, a pretty standard G-class star. Even the largest main sequence stars of the O-class are only a fraction of this brightness, though still much brighter than the sun.

    Abundance

    • Super giants are extremely rare, though not as rare as stars which go supernova or turn into black holes. Super giants account for about 0.0001 stars in the known universe. By contrast, over 90 percent of stars are regular, main sequence stars. The most common type of star is the low-burning, long-living M-class star which accounts for about 80 percent of all stars. Our sun belongs to the G-class, which accounts for about 3.5 percent of stars in the known universe.


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