Posted on 08/14/2020 10:18:51 AM PDT by BenLurkin
In the fall of 2019, Betelgeuse began dimming significantly, losing about two-thirds of its brightness by February. This dramatic dip spurred speculation that the star's demise may have been imminent — perhaps just weeks away.
But the dramatic sky show didn't happen: Betelgeuse powered through the dimming episode and returned to its normal brightness by May of this year. The recovery sparked a new round of speculation, this time about the dimming's cause. Some scientists attributed the doldrums to a light-blocking dust cloud, for example, whereas others said big starspots on Betelgeuse's surface were likely to blame.
A new study bolsters the dust hypothesis, but adds a twist — Betelgeuse itself apparently coughed up the cloud.
The researchers studied the star in 2019 and 2020 using NASA's iconic Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble's observations from September through November 2019 revealed huge amounts of material moving from Betelgeuse's surface to its outer atmosphere at tremendous speeds — about 200,000 mph (320,000 km/h).
During this three-month-long outburst, Betelgeuse lost about twice as much material to space from its southern hemisphere as it normally does, study team members said.
This superhot plasma, or electrically charged gas, cooled considerably after traveling millions of miles from Betelgeuse, condensing into dust grains and forming a light-blocking cloud...
"This material was two to four times more luminous than the star's normal brightness," lead author Andrea Dupree, associate director of the Center for Astrophysics run by Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in a statement.
"And then, about a month later, the south part of Betelgeuse dimmed conspicuously as the star grew fainter," Dupree said. "We think it is possible that a dark cloud resulted from the outflow that Hubble detected."
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Another thing to blame Trump for.
I always wanted to be an astronomer!
From what I remember, you’ll be able to see at day.
And of course it all happened a long time ago.
Truly huge-
Now that would be news I would like to learn and hear about.
Instead the news is full of BS all engineered to make me think and act a certain way and contains “zero” actionable information.
I love a good fireworks show!!
2600 light years? Pffft! A hop, skip and jump. I live on The Jersey Shore. On some moonless nights I can see The Andromeda Galaxy and that thing is 2 million, 300 hundred thousand light years away.
Betelgeuse, Deneb, and a few others all seem to get the distinction of being the most massive. In comparison our star is a shrimp. Some theories suggest that Betelgeuse went supernova a long time ago.
It’s been off gassing for ten years. From what I was told when it does go supernova it will light up your yard, like the brightest full moon you’ve ever seen, for weeks.
I wanted to be a Banker!
Those are only Stars that we know of.
As I like to say, we will never know as much as we don’t know.
The other day, Dinesh D’Souza called her mayor Beetlejuice in one of his YouTube videos. Hilarious!
It’s a walleyed buckwheat fish...
Read a newspaper upon a moonless night by the blue glow of the supernova. Should be visible in the daytime sky for several weeks, allowing that it happens in the right time of the year—SN 1054.
Thank you.
very much
Betelgeuse itself apparently coughed up the cloud.
It coughed up a fur ball.
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