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[EN VIDÉO] Why does the star Betelgeuse change its brightness? This is Betelgeuse, normally a very bright star in the constellation Orion. Why wasn’t its brightness…
Between late 2019 and early 2020, Betelgeuse, one of the brightest stars in our sky, lost much of its brightness. The English-speaking speakers spoke of “Great Dimming Event”, meaning “event of great darkening”. And some believed that the red supergiant was about to explode in a supernova. But it wasn’t like that.
High-resolution images show Betelgeuse’s decline in brightness
Betelgeuse’s drop in brightness was due to dust. This is confirmed by high-resolution images of the red supergiant and its Great Dimming Event, created by researchers at the University of Côte d’Azur using the Matisse infrared instrument on the European Space Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). They are featured in the monthly bulletins of the Royal Astronomical Society.
When Betelgeuse appeared hidden from our eyes, it actually became brighter in the infrared range detected by Matisse. And the changes the instrument reveals in both its photosphere (top images) and silicon monoxide (bottom images) are consistent with both the formation of a cold spot on the star’s surface and the ejection of a dust cloud.