red giant
7
7.2
- noun
- /rɛd ˈdʒaɪənt/
- Specialized
:
gigante rojo
- The most luminous stars in the bulge are red giants, which in fact emit more infrared than visible light.
- red giant star
Start Betelgeuse, one of the biggest, baddest red giants in the known universe.
- Start Betelgeuse, one of the biggest, baddest red giants in the known universe.
- But like, stars spend anything from thousands of years to millions of years in these red giant phases before they become white dwarfs.
- So there's another kind of object out there where you have a binary system, once again, a red giant and a white dwarf.
- And so, yeah, in the end, that will that will be the fate, most likely fate of the Earth is in the outer atmosphere of a red giant.
Examples
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Betelgeuse is one of the most well-known red giants, easily visible in the night sky.
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Some people think the sun will swell up into a red giant and burn up all the planets.
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In a few billion years the sun will become a red giant...
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Because lithium is easily destroyed in stars, finding lots of it in an old red giant is unexpected.
Blog text (6) -
The element carbon is made in old red giant stars through the fusion of helium.
Academic text (2004) -
But eventually, the heat death of the Sun when it expands into a red giant will consume all of the inner planets, including Mars.
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Much of his research centers around old red-giant stars and globular clusters in the Milky Way.
Academic text (2004) -
As the star neared the end of its life and exhausted its nuclear fuel, it swelled into a red giant and eventually ejected its distended outer layers.
Academic text (2005) -
In a few billion years, the Sun will transform into a red giant, vastly increasing its size.
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As a star exhausts its nuclear fuel, it swells and becomes a red giant during its final phase.
Synonyms
27
8.8
A very large bright star near the end of its life
3
6.8
A very large bright star near the end of its life
1
6.3
A very large, old star that shines bright and red
How Big
- Specialized
3
8.5
- Specialized
7
7.2
- Specialized
3
6.8
- Specialized
- Specialized
5
7.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'red' supplies the color attribute and 'giant' denotes something very large (and in astronomy a late-stage large star), so a learner who knows both constituents can infer 'a large/red star'. Color + noun compounds are a common, cross-linguistic pattern in English, making the expression immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
The noun red giant comes from watching old stars near the end of their life: they swell to a huge size and their surface cools and turns red. So the words red and giant describe a star that is 'very large' and 'cool/red' today.