2 min read

Meet the Workaholic Star, Betelgeuse

This image has three panels: one on the right, taking up about half the image, and two stacked on the left. In the upper left is a Hubble image of Betelgeuse. The star looks like a glowing ball of yellow light with a bright yellow circle in the center that fades outward to a dark orange. The outer edges appear hazy. Below the image of Betelgeuse are three scale bars. The first shows the size of the star as seen in the Hubble image above. Below that is a scale bar showing the size of Earth’s orbit, which is about a 15% the length of the star’s size. Finally, the last scale bar shows the orbit of Jupiter, which is about 70% as long as the star’s size. The panel on the right shows a black background with many stars of different sizes dotted around the image. The stars of Orion are called out with light white lines drawn between the major stars. An arrow points to one star at the upper left, the location of Betelgeuse.
This is the first direct image of a star other than the Sun, made with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Called Alpha Orionis, or Betelgeuse, it is a red supergiant star marking the shoulder of the winter constellation Orion the Hunter.
Andrea Dupree (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), Ronald Gilliland (STScI), NASA and ESA

by Dave Prosper of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

The bright reddish star marking the shoulder of Orion, the mighty hunter, is a mighty workaholic.  If it's clear outside, you can see it tonight.

Born as a super-massive star millions of years ago, Betelgeuse*, is now nearing the end of its life and has expanded to become red supergiant star.  But it is still working hard to build the wealth needed to support future generations of stars within our galaxy.  

Imagine you could be deep inside Betelgeuse, near its core – the star’s storehouse. 

You could watch the star constructing heavier and heavier elements – hydrogen to helium to carbon to oxygen eventually all the way to iron. 

It is assembling and storing away many of the elements needed to build the next generations of stars, rocky planets, and life, like you!  But how does that wealth of elements get out of that storehouse deep inside the star?

Well, that’s the next phase in the life of Betelgeuse.

Betelgeuse will eventually explode as a supernova blasting its store of heavy elements out into our galaxy - providing the raw materials for future stellar generations. 

This explosion might happen tonight . . . or within the few hundred thousand years...or it may have already happened, and we haven't seen it yet! Keep watching – you might witness the light from the moment Betelgeuse flung its wealth back into the community of stars.


*(pronounced BAY-tel-jooz)