"Over their lifetimes, red supergiants like Betelgeuse create and eject vast amounts of material even before they explode as supernovae. Astronomers have observed the ever dimming surface of Betelguese with the aid of the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). The existing Open Comments threads will continue to exist for those who do not subscribe to Independent Premium. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Due to the sheer scale of this comment community, we are not able to give each post the same level of attention, but we have preserved this area in the interests of open debate. “Over their lifetimes, red supergiants like Betelgeuse create and eject vast amounts of material even before they explode as supernovae. They have put forward other explanations of the dimming and shape-changing demonstrated in the SPHERE images. 4 common mistakes people make when scaling their HR and finance systems, Call of Duty's Halloween event has a Zombie royale and horror crossovers, Google Assistant displays get a new UI, a dark theme, and more features, Disney+ adds a stronger warning ahead of films with racist stereotypes, Learn Python machine learning with these essential books and online courses, UK city plans escooter trial despite safety failures elsewhere. They have been observing Betelgeuse with the VLT since December in an attempt to unravel the cause of the changes it is undergoing. Quarters, Samsung temporarily shuts down a factory in South Korea due to Coronavirus, Why software developers might be obsolete by 2030, Why training neural networks comes with a hefty price tag, Facebook and YouTube take action against QAnon — but they’re fighting a losing battle. Enter Miguel Montargès, an astronomer at KU Leuven in Belgium, and his team. New images of the unstable red supergiant released today by the European Southern Observatory reveal a distinctly lopsided star. Researchers now speculate that the star is not in fact about to go supernova, but is undergoing some other, similarly dramatic process. We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth, Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015, A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is a change so extreme it is noticeable with the naked eye. TNW uses cookies to personalize content and ads to Other images taken using the same Very Large Telescope show that the dust around Betelgeuse is emitting infrared light. The clouds of dust — which resemble flames in the VISIR image — are formed when the star deposits material into space. This like for like comparison (above) also seems to clearly show that Betelguese is changing shape. The video below takes you from the surroundings of Betelgeuse, recently observed with the VISIR instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), to its surface, which has been imaged by SPHERE on the VLT. The nuclear fusion aspect of nucleosynthesis is still the engine that prevents gravity from overwhelming the core. You can read this original piece here. “The two scenarios we are working on are a cooling of the surface due to exceptional stellar activity or dust ejection towards us,” says Montargès. Space Weather News for Feb. 14, 2020 https://spaceweather.com https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com THE CHANGING SHAPE OF BETELGEUSE: Betelgeuse isn't just dimming, it's also changing shape. Please be respectful when making a comment and adhere to our Community Guidelines. The observations, taken with the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in January and December 2019, show how much the star has faded and how its apparent shape has changed. "The two scenarios we are working on are a cooling of the surface due to exceptional stellar activity or dust ejection towards us," said Miguel Montargès, an astronomer from KU Leuven in Belgium, who led the new study. Got two minutes to spare? The most insightful comments on all subjects will be published daily in dedicated articles. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Betelgeuse – a red supergiant that can be seen in the constellation Orion – has historically been one of the sky's brightest stars. The Betelgeuse star only has 36 percent of its normal brightness left. Independent Premium Comments can be posted by members of our membership scheme, Independent Premium. Since December, astronomers have observed the star using the ESO's Very Large Telescope, in an attempt to understand the strange behaviour of the star. Modern technology has enabled us to study these objects, hundreds of light-years away, in unprecedented detail giving us the opportunity to unravel the mystery of what triggers their mass loss.". Curiosmos Send an email February 15, 2020 Last Updated: July 19, 2020. This article was originally published on The Cosmic Companion by Rob Lea. make our site easier for you to use. The red super giant, which is part of the constellation Orion, has been dimming since 2019, but is also changing shape. After an unprecedented dimming, followed by the detection of a gravitational wave, the star seems to have changed shape. Montargès continues: “ Instruments on ESO’s VLT allow observations from the visible to the mid-infrared, meaning astronomers can see both the surface of Betelgeuse and the material around it. "Of course, our knowledge of red supergiants remains incomplete, and this is still a work in progress, so a surprise can still happen.". Betelgeuse’s irregular surface is made up of giant convective cells that move, shrink and swell. These periodic changes are nowhere near as extreme as the changes the star has recently undergone, however. Kervella explains that the wavelength of the image is similar to that detected by heat cameras.
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