Scientists now have established why the red supergiant star Betelgeuse turned dim between 2018 and 2020.
- According to a team of scientists from France’s Université Côte d’Azur, the dimming was caused by a burst of dust on the star’s surface.
About Betelgeuse star
- Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star with a distinctive orange-red hue. Stars in this class are nearing the end of their lives.
- They are the largest stars in the universe because they puff up and expand out into space in their old age.
- At roughly 10 million years old, Betelgeuse is much younger than our nearly 5-billion-year-old Sun. It is also much more massive and will burn through its materials faster and will therefore have a shorter lifespan than a star like our Sun.
- Betelgeuse is around 700 light-years away. This means that it takes the light from this star about 700 years to reach Earth, so if a person sees Betelgeuse in the night sky, he is seeing the star from about 700 years ago. Light-year is the distance light travels in one year.
- Betelgeuse is also one of the largest stars visible to the unaided eye. It’s about 700 times the size of the Sun and around 15 times more massive.
- With a surface temperature of about 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit (over 3,300 degrees Celsius) – Betelgeuse is cooler than our Sun’s roughly 10,000-degree Fahrenheit (over 5,500 degree-Celsius) surface.
