As reported by The Sun, Wednesday (1/6/2022), Betelgeuse has a history of unexplained erratic behavior for a while.
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But the unusual event has scientists trying to figure out what’s happening at Betelgeuse with technology that wasn’t originally designed to study the stars.
A Japanese weather satellite accidentally takes a picture of Betelgeuse during a routine scan of the Earth.
“The Himawari-8 satellite also observes the space region around the edge of the Earth’s disk during each scan. This motivated us to develop a new concept: using meteorological satellites as ‘space telescopes’ for astronomy.” they wrote in a study published in Nature.
Betelgeuse, 640 light-years away, is the only star other than our own whose surface we can describe in detail. Fortunately, this can help us understand why the brightness levels vary so much.
”The gas emitted from Betelgeuse continuously will cause dimming of light in the antiques,” explained the researchers.
But the current substantial dimming is not necessarily a sign of its imminent demise. That’s because, at this stage, we don’t know enough about how star brightness develops prior to this event. This is what makes Betelgeuse even more interesting among astronomers.
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