| Characteristic | Red Giant Star | Sun |

|---|---|---|

| Size | Can be up to 100 times larger in diameter than the Sun | About 1.4 million kilometers in diameter |

| Mass | Can be several times more massive than the Sun | About 330,000 times the mass of Earth |

| Color | Red | Yellow |

| Temperature | Surface temperature can be as low as 3,500 K | Surface temperature of about 5,778 K |

| Luminosity | Can be several thousand times brighter than the Sun | About 3.8 × 10^26 watts |

| Age | Red giants are typically older stars, in the later stages of their evolution | The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old |

| Fate | Red giants eventually become white dwarfs | The Sun will eventually become a red giant and then a white dwarf |