Hertzsprung-Russell
diagram. A plot of luminosity (absolute magnitude) against the colour of
the stars ranging from the high-temperature blue-white stars on the left side
of the diagram to the low temperature red stars on the right side. "This diagram is a plot of 22000 stars from
the Hipparcos Catalogue together with 1000 low-luminosity
stars (red and white dwarfs) from the Gliese Catalogue of Nearby Stars.
The ordinary hydrogen-burning dwarf stars like the Sun are found in a band running
from top-left to bottom-right called the Main Sequence. Giant stars form their
own clump on the upper-right side of the diagram. Above them lie the much rarer
bright giants and supergiants.
At the lower-left is the band of white dwarfs - these are the dead cores of old
stars which have no internal energy source and over billions of years slowly
cool down towards the bottom-right of the diagram." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HRDiagram.png)