2020 January 2
The Fainting of Betelgeuse
Image Credit & Copyright: Jimmy Westlake (Colorado Mountain College)
Image Credit & Copyright: Jimmy Westlake (Colorado Mountain College)
Explanation:
Begirt with many a blazing star,
Orion the Hunter is one of the most recognizable
constellations.
In this
night
skyscape
the Hunter's stars rise in the northern hemisphere's winter sky
on December 30, 2019, tangled in bare trees near
Newnan, Georgia, USA.
Red super giant star Betelgeuse
stands out in yellowish hues at
Orion's shoulder left of center, but it
no longer so strongly rivals the
blue supergiant star Rigel at the Hunter's foot.
In fact, skygazers around planet Earth can see a strikingly
fainter Betelgeuse now, its brightness
fading
by more than half in the final months of 2019.
Betelgeuse has long been known to be a variable star,
changing its brightness in multiple cycles with approximate
short and long term periods of hundreds of days to many years.
The star
is now close
to its faintest since photometric measurements in 1926/27,
likely due in part to a near coincidence in the minimum of short
and long term cycles.
Betelgeuse is also
recognized as a nearby red supergiant star
that will end its life in a core collapse supernova explosion
sometime in the next 1,000 years,
though that cosmic cataclysm will take place
a safe 700 light-years or so
from
our fair planet.
