Tip of the red-giant branch

Sun-like stars have a degenerate core on the red-giant branch and ascend to the tip before starting core helium fusion with a flash.

Tip of the red-giant branch (TRGB) is a primary distance indicator used in astronomy. It uses the luminosity of the brightest red-giant-branch stars in a galaxy as a standard candle to gauge the distance to that galaxy. It has been used in conjunction with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope to determine the relative motions of the Local Cluster of galaxies within the Local Supercluster. Ground-based, 8-meter-class telescopes like the VLT are also able to measure the TRGB distance within reasonable observation times in the local universe.[1]

  1. ^ Müller, Oliver; Rejkuba, Marina; Jerjen, Helmut (2018). "Tip of the red giant branch distances to the dwarf galaxies dw1335-29 and dw1340-30 in the Centaurus group". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 615: A96. arXiv:1803.02406. Bibcode:2018A&A...615A..96M. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201732455. S2CID 67754889.