Mystery of Betelgeuse twinkle solved after hundreds of years
Betelgeuse has a companion star that pushes light-blocking dust out of the way, temporarily making the star glow more brightly. The presence of the star, nicknamed 'Betelbuddy', had been theorised, but Nasa has spotted it for the first time using its Gemini North telescope, in Hawaii.
Steve Howell, a senior research scientist at the Nasa Ames Research Centre in California, said: 'Papers that predicted Betelgeuse's companion believed that no one would likely ever be able to image it.
'Gemini North's ability to obtain high angular resolutions and sharp contrasts allowed the companion of Betelgeuse to be directly detected.'
Betelgeuse, roughly pronounced as 'Beetlejuice', sits about 650 light years from Earth and glows 100,000 times brighter than the sun. It is so big that if it sat at the centre of our solar system, in the position of the sun, its surface would lie farther out than Mars.
It is known as a variable star, getting brighter and dimmer every 400 days.
In 2019 and 2020, there was a steep decrease in Betelgeuse's brightness − an event referred to as the 'Great Dimming', which led to some scientists suggesting its dulled twinkle was foreshadowing an impending supernova that would darken the star for ever.
However, it turned out that the star had emitted a large gas bubble, which then cooled to form dust, temporarily blocking its shine.
The Great Dimming mystery sparked a renewed interest in studying Betelgeuse,
but it was not until researchers used a special technique called 'speckle imaging' that the star was discovered.
Speckle imaging uses very short exposure times to freeze out the distortions in images caused by Earth's atmosphere, enabling high resolution, which, when combined with the light-collecting power of Gemini North, allowed the new star to be seen for the first time.
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