Astronomers Got an Unusually Sharp Look at Betelgeuse. They Found a Lumpy Star With a Hotspot That Won’t Budge
Astronomers using the ALMA telescope have captured high-resolution images of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse, revealing a persistent hotspot in its atmosphere. This discovery challenges existing models of stellar convection and suggests complex internal dynamics as the star nears the end of its life.
Why it matters
Understanding the behavior of massive stars like Betelgeuse provides essential insights into stellar evolution and the life cycles of stars in our galaxy.
Betelgeuse looks less like a perfect sphere than a boiling, misshapen blob. In some of the sharpest submillimeter images yet made of the famous red supergiant, its edge ripples in and out, bright patches break up its face, and clumps of molecular gas crowd the atmosphere around it.
The article is a scientific report on astronomical observations with no political or social bias.
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