Video: Orion Constellation Star Betelgeuse Had 'Titanic' Eruption Never Seen Before By Scientists
Observers of the night-time sky noticed something strange about the star Betelgeuse three years ago. In 2019, the star dimmed for a few months. This was something astronomers saw but was also visible to amateur observers because Betelgeuse is one of the brightest stars in the sky and serves as the right shoulder in the constellation Orion. Scientists have now concluded this event was a Surface Mass Ejection, something never before seen. Check it out in the video below.
WATCH VIDEO HERE
Uploaded by TikTok space expert @astro_alexandra, the clip helps explain the event scientists are beginning themselves to fully understand. Currently, the red supergiant star is still slowly recuperating from the explosive incident.
"Betelgeuse continues doing some very unusual things right now; the interior is sort of bouncing," says Andrea Dupree of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
"We've never before seen a huge mass ejection of the surface of a star," she continues. "We are left with something going on that we don't completely understand. It's a totally new phenomenon that we can observe directly and resolve surface details with Hubble. We're watching stellar evolution in real time."
Betelgeuse is approaching the end of its existence and is expected to supernova in the next 100,000 years. It is so large at the moment that if it were placed in our solar system where the sun is, its surface would extend past Jupiter's orbit.
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