US EditionGemini North Directly Images Betelgeuse's Long-Sought Companion Star
HAWAII, JUL 21 – The discovery of Siwarha, a smaller companion star orbiting within Betelgeuse’s atmosphere, explains its brightness fluctuations and resolves a century-old astronomical mystery.
- A team led by NASA Ames scientist Steve Howell published findings today revealing a close companion star orbiting Betelgeuse using Gemini North's Alopeke imager.
- The discovery followed renewed interest triggered by Betelgeuse's 2019-20 Great Dimming, which was explained by a dust cloud but prompted suspicion of a companion star.
- The companion star, which is young and blue-white, lies within Betelgeuse’s extended atmosphere at a distance roughly four times that between the Earth and the Sun, shines six magnitudes dimmer, and completes its orbit unusually close for a binary system.
- Howell noted that this discovery pushed the limits of what Gemini's high-resolution imaging capabilities can achieve, successfully demonstrating its potential and paving the way for similar future observations.
- Astronomers plan further observations in November 2027 when the companion reaches maximum separation, and estimate that tidal forces will cause the companion to spiral into Betelgeuse within 10,000 years.
66 Articles
66 Articles
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Red supergiant star Betelgeuse has a new excuse for its bad behavior: an accomplice.The star, pronounced "Beetlejuice" (just like the Michael Keaton character), sits like a little devil on the shoulder of the Orion constellation about 700 light-years away in space. It has long-perplexed scientists, with some convinced it was on the brink of a supernova.More recently, astronomers have proposed a theory for its volatile nature, which explains the …
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