Steel Icarus
an attempt was made
Yeah. Those four light hours will make all the difference.
Betelgeuse is shrinking
- Thread starter cybertect
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8ball
As seen on TikTok
I think what you meant to say is that Betelguese went through a period of dimming in the late 14th Century.
Wonder what it's up to these days...
Though if we get a supernova that will be pretty awesome, like a bright extra full moon (good bit brighter than that, I think).
Should be fine so long as it doesn't coincide with a polar shift...
Rural crime rates set to rocket.
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2hats
Dust.
No. When I say recorded I mean with modern photometric techniques.
8ball
As seen on TikTok
Betelgeuse is my favourite star
2hats
Dust.
Betelgeuse has (at least has had until recently) a dominant pulsation period of around 430 days. If this is still the case then we should see the star hit a minimum and then start to brighten at some point in the next 7-14 days. Even if it does so, this will still have been a most unusual, exceptional minimum. Quite possibly some indication of a new phase in its life cycle.
The ESO VLT SPHERE instrument (Paranal, Chile) has directly imaged the surface of Betelgeuse in visible light over the previous two months and it has clearly changed significantly in presentation from near identical observations made about a year earlier:
This could be interpreted as some large scale fluctuation on the surface of the star, part of the early stages prior to going supernova that see very large scale (and hence 'lumpy') convective cells pulsating and bumbling up to the surface (see the simulation back in post #27). It could be some sort of cooling event - perhaps a starspot (cf sunspot). Or possibly it is an ejection of dust in the direction of the observer causing elevated, transient dimming - Betelgeuse is certainly shedding a lot of the outer envelope of its atmosphere at this late stage in its life as illustrated in this infra-red (VLT VISIR instrument) imagery taken December 2019:
(Note that the bright dot at the centre of the above image is the SPHERE imagery of the star's surface scaled to the correct size and laid over the occulting mask which cuts off the excessively bright output from the stellar surface itself).
More in an ESO press release here.
The ESO VLT SPHERE instrument (Paranal, Chile) has directly imaged the surface of Betelgeuse in visible light over the previous two months and it has clearly changed significantly in presentation from near identical observations made about a year earlier:
This could be interpreted as some large scale fluctuation on the surface of the star, part of the early stages prior to going supernova that see very large scale (and hence 'lumpy') convective cells pulsating and bumbling up to the surface (see the simulation back in post #27). It could be some sort of cooling event - perhaps a starspot (cf sunspot). Or possibly it is an ejection of dust in the direction of the observer causing elevated, transient dimming - Betelgeuse is certainly shedding a lot of the outer envelope of its atmosphere at this late stage in its life as illustrated in this infra-red (VLT VISIR instrument) imagery taken December 2019:
(Note that the bright dot at the centre of the above image is the SPHERE imagery of the star's surface scaled to the correct size and laid over the occulting mask which cuts off the excessively bright output from the stellar surface itself).
More in an ESO press release here.
have they found any exoplanets in orbit around Betelgeuse?
2hats
Dust.
No direct evidence. Any that have formed in the short lifetime of the star might have been absorbed in the atmosphere. Alternatively they might still be in that shed atmosphere somewhere but are beyond the reach of current observational techniques.
wayward bob
i ate all your bees
i love that fade in/out sent it to my significant other (astrophysicist) who was disappointingly less than 
woah. shame on him and his rational understanding of probability/cosmic timescales 
woah. shame on him and his rational understanding of probability/cosmic timescales 
bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
If it goes off will it be painful
2hats
Dust.
2hats
Dust.
Too parochial for cosmologists.i love that fade in/out sent it to my significant other (astrophysicist) who was disappointingly less than
wayward bob
i ate all your bees
fuckit i asked out loud for northern lights and got them (in their most numinous form) am now asking out loud for a supernova pls.
... waits patiently ....
... waits patiently ....
bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
so I don’t need to cancel my opticians appointment on Monday
probably not bellaozzydog
farmerbarleymow
I'm Petee's spirit animal
Take your sunglasses just in case it goes supernova.
2hats
Dust.
And here she goes - we'll likely have to wait a little longer for a firework show - observed to be gradually brightening once more in the last couple of days.
Additional observations in the near IR suggest that the luminosity has been fairly constant which implies this is either some extinction event (perhaps ejection of part of the outer stellar envelope) or some other change in surface environment (morphology, temperature, etc) as oppose to a variation in overall power output.
wayward bob
i ate all your bees
<sulks> 
farmerbarleymow
I'm Petee's spirit animal
I'm disappointed it's not going to blow up next week.
2hats
Dust.
So VLT observations point to a cool region of the photosphere itself, cooling an adjacent, recently ejected, cloud of gas leading to dust formation obscuring part of the stellar disk. So an accentuated transient dimming effect (cool photosphere plus dust cloud) was observed.
www.bbc.co.uk
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03546-8.
'Great Dimming' of Betelgeuse star is solved
Astronomers say a cold spot and dust formation explain last year's unusual drop in brightness.
www.bbc.co.uk
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