Betelgeuse tagged posts

One of the brightest stars in the night sky, Betelgeuse, may not be on the brink of exploding as a supernova, according to a new study of the star’s brightening and dimming. Instead, recent research shows that the observed pulsing of the starlight is probably caused by an unseen companion star orbiting Betelgeuse.

Formally named Alpha Ori B, the “Betelbuddy” (as astrophysicist Jared Goldberg calls it) acts like a snowplow as it orbits Betelgeuse, pushing light-blocking dust out of the way and temporarily making Betelgeuse seem brighter. Goldberg and his colleagues present their simulations of this process in a paper accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. The findings are published on the arXiv preprint server.

“We ruled out e...

Nothing lasts forever, including the stars in our night sky. One of the brighter and more notable stars in our sky is Betelgeuse, the bright red supergiant in the shoulder of Orion.

In late 2019, astronomers around the world grew giddy with excitement, because we saw this giant star get fainter than we’ve ever seen it before. Since Betelgeuse is at the end stages of its life, there was some speculation this might be a death rattle before the end.

But the cause of the “great dimming” wasn’t ...

Betelgeuse has been the center of significant media attention lately. The red supergiant is nearing the end of its life, and when a star over 10 times the mass of the Sun dies, it goes out in spectacular fashion. With its brightness recently dipping to the lowest point in the last hundred years, many space enthusiasts are excited that Betelgeuse may soon go supernova, exploding in a dazzling display that could be visible even in daylight.

While the famous star in Orion’s shoulder will likely meet its demise within the next million years—practically couple days in cosmic time—scientists maintain that its dimming is due to th...

Have you noticed that Orion the Hunter—one of the most iconic and familiar of the wintertime constellations—is looking a little… different as of late? The culprit is its upper shoulder star Alpha Orionis, aka Betelgeuse, which is looking markedly faint, the faintest it has been for the 21st century.

When will this nearby supernova candidate pop, and what would look like if it did?

The story starts, as all good astronomy and space stories seem to, on Friday night going into a holiday weekend...