Near the end of 2019, astronomers watching the red giant Betelgeuse noted how much the star had dimmed, continuing to steadily fade for months.
It’s a variable star, and it’s known to get dimmer and brighter, but the big surprise is that it’s still continuing to dim, recently passing magnitude 1.56 and still getting dimmer. This is unprecedented in the decades that astronomers have been watching the star.
The world’s biggest telescopes are on the case, and the European Southern Observatory released dramatic new images of Betelguese, resolving features on the star’s surface and surrounding area showing how it’s dramatically changed over the course of 2019.
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Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected]
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References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msVuCEs8Ydo
https://twitter.com/betelbot/status/1228395402245890048
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2003/
https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/vlt-instr/sphere/
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1640a/
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2003b/
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2003a/
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2003d/
https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/vlt-instr/visir/
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