Betelgeuse what kind of star

The following image by the European Southern Observatory shows the size comparison of Betelgeuse compared to the planets in our solar system. The overlaid annotation shows how large the star is compared to our Solar System. The Star Betelgeuse Where is Betelgeuse located? Distance to Earth: Joyce, M. Download references. News 09 NOV Research Highlight 05 NOV News 04 NOV Francis Crick Institute. Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

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And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community space. View Deal. Samantha Mathewson. See all comments 1. The researchers compared pictures before, during and after the dimming, and did some modelling to see what kind of behaviour might give rise to the views obtained.

Two ideas were dominant. Perhaps there was a large cool spot on the surface of the star, because red supergiants like Betelgeuse are known to have very large convective cells that can cause hot spots and cold spots. Or maybe there was a cloud of dust forming right in front of the star as viewed from Earth. But then this condensation of dust would add to the rapid drop in brightness of the star.

Betelgeuse is about times as massive as the Sun. An object that big is likely to go supernova at some point.