Abstract
We have identified 21 mass-losing red supergiants (20 M-type, 1 G-type, L > 105 L⊙) within 2.5 kpc of the Sun. These supergiants are highly evolved descendants of main sequence stars with initial masses larger than about 20 M⊙. The surface density projected onto the plane of the Milky Way is between about 1 and 2 kpc–2. Although with considerable uncertainty, we estimate that the mass return by the M supergiants is somewhere between 1 and 3 10-5 M⊙ kpc–2 yr–1. In the hemisphere facing the galactic center there is much less mass loss from M supergiants than from W-R stars, but in the anticenter direction, the M supergiants return more mass than do the W-R stars. The duration of the M supergiant phase appears to be between 2 and 4 105 years. During this phase a star of initially at least 20 M⊙ returns perhaps 3 to 10 M⊙ into the interstellar medium.
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