One of the brightest stars in the night sky may not be on verge of exploding after all
manchestereveningnews.co.ukSome astronomers believe the 10th-brightest star in the night sky, Betelgeuse, is on the brink of exploding as a supernova because of the way it brightens and dims.
Now a new theory has emerged that the observed pulsing of Betelgeuse is probably caused by an unseen companion star orbiting it.
Formally named Alpha Ori B but dubbed “Betelbuddy” by astrophysicist Jared Goldberg, the smaller star acts like a snowplough as it orbits Betelgeuse, pushing light-blocking dust out of the way and temporarily making Betelgeuse seem brighter.
Goldberg, whose team has had a paper accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, said: "We ruled out every intrinsic source of variability that we could think of as to why the brightening and dimming was happening in this way,” says Goldberg, the study’s lead author and a Flatiron research fellow at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics. “The only hypothesis that seemed to fit is that Betelgeuse has a companion.” Goldberg co-authored the study with Meridith Joyce of the University of Wyoming and László Molnár of Konkoly Observatory at the HUN-REN Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences in Hungary. READ MORE: Nasa captures incredible image of star '5000 times brighter than the Sun' Betelgeuse is a red giant star around 100,000 times the brightness of our sun and more than 400 million times the volume.
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