Betelgeuse Update: Something Weird Is Happening To The Star

Is the Betelgeuse supernova going to happen soon? This red supergiant star, nestled on Orion's shoulder, has experienced a sudden increase in its brightness — surging by over 50 percent above its typical luminosity. At the beginning of the year, Betelgeuse was the 10th brightest star in our night sky. But because of this unusual brightening, it has now moved up to the seventh spot. In a new study, astronomers have noticed that the 400-day cycle of the red supergiant star has been halved to just 200 days after the Great Dimming that began in December 2019. In the paper (given below), the scientists used computer simulations to better understand what happened. RESEARCH PAPERS: Left Ringing: Betelgeuse Illuminates the Connection Between Convective outbursts, Mode switching, and Mass Ejection in Red Supergiants, MacLeod et al. (2023) - https://bit.ly/436Zuom The Great Dimming of Betelgeuse: a Surface Mass Ejection (SME) and its Consequences, Dupree et al. (2022) - https://bit.ly/437ul3V