Two recent investigations imply that the red supergiant near the shoulder of the constellation Orion has continuously put on a display for astronomers from antiquity to the present. One team claims that Betelgeuse may still be recuperating from a deep dimming incident a few years ago. Another team claims that the star’s crimson stage makeup, which it had previously worn in place of yellow, was only applied 2,000 years ago.
Together, these investigations may reveal how stars expel their material into space and provide a timeline for the supernova explosion of Betelgeuse.
“This star always fools you; you think you have it, and all of a sudden, it changes.”
Edward Guinan, an astronomer at Villanova University in Pennsylvania
THE GREAT DIMMING
Betelgeuse attracted astronomers’ attention in late 2019 when it abruptly became dark for many months; this occurrence is now known as the Great Dimming. After several months of studies, scientists discovered the cause: the star had released a sizable plasma bubble. A few months later, the material cooled, compacted into dust, and obscured the star’s face from Earth’s perspective. Additionally, the star’s surface began to cool, which caused the darkening
It appears that the star’s normal pulsing brilliance has entirely changed.
Betelgeuse’s brightness was controlled by a quasi-periodic dimmer switch in its existence before the Great Dimming. The star’s brightness fluctuated as it inhaled and exhaled, expanding before contracting again. According to Dupree of the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “for 200 years, it had a lovely, 400-day oscillation in brightness.” But that’s no longer there.
Since then, that steady rhythm has become unpredictable. The oscillations are not a regular thrum, but “are like an unbalanced washing machine, going ‘wonka wonka wonka,’” Dupree says.
According to Dupree, the wonkiness is a symptom that the celebrity is having trouble getting over the loss of material in 2019. According to her calculations, Betelgeuse expelled off its surface many times the moon’s mass, leaving a sizable chilly patch in its wake. The plasma on the star’s surface is swirling as it reaches equilibrium.
image credits: JAMES STONE JAMES-STONE.COM/MOMENT/GETTY IMAGES
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