Data from two different studies suggest Betelgeuse has a Sun-sized companion star
An optical image of Betelgeuse taken in 2017 by a ground-based
telescope, showing its not unusual aspherical shape.
Click for original image.
Two different independent studies have uncovered evidence that the red giant star Betalgeuse likely has an unseen companion star about the mass of the Sun and orbiting it every six years.
MacLeod and colleagues linked a six-year cycle of Betelgeuse brightening and dimming to a companion star tweaking its orbit, in a paper submitted to arXiv.org September 17. MacLeod examined global, historical measurements dating back to 1896.
Separately, Jared Goldberg of the Flatiron Institute in New York and colleagues used the last 20-odd years of measurements of Betelgeuse’s motion on the sky, which have the highest precision. That team also found evidence of a companion nudging the bigger star, submitted to arXiv.org August 17.
Previous observers noticed Betelgeuse’s light varying on a roughly six-year cycle. In 1908, English astronomer Henry Cozier Plummer suggested the cycle could be from the gravity of a companion star tugging Betelgeuse back and forth.
You can download the two papers here and here. This quote from the first paper’s abstract not only explains why the star has not been detected previously, but suggests its doomed future:
The companion star would be nearly twenty times less massive and a million times fainter than Betelgeuse, with similar effective temperature, effectively hiding it in plain sight near one of the best-studied stars in the night sky. The astrometric data favor an edge-on binary with orbital plane aligned with Betelgeuse’s measured spin axis. Tidal spin-orbit interaction drains angular momentum from the orbit and spins up Betelgeuse, explaining the spin–orbit alignment and Betelgeuse’s anomalously rapid spin. In the future, the orbit will decay until the companion is swallowed by Betelgeuse in the next 10,000 years. [emphasis mine]
The presence and future capture of this small companion star will help astronomers better calculate future fluctuations of Betelgesue itself. That capture is also going to occur relatively soon, on astronomical time scales.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
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An optical image of Betelgeuse taken in 2017 by a ground-based
telescope, showing its not unusual aspherical shape.
Click for original image.
Two different independent studies have uncovered evidence that the red giant star Betalgeuse likely has an unseen companion star about the mass of the Sun and orbiting it every six years.
MacLeod and colleagues linked a six-year cycle of Betelgeuse brightening and dimming to a companion star tweaking its orbit, in a paper submitted to arXiv.org September 17. MacLeod examined global, historical measurements dating back to 1896.
Separately, Jared Goldberg of the Flatiron Institute in New York and colleagues used the last 20-odd years of measurements of Betelgeuse’s motion on the sky, which have the highest precision. That team also found evidence of a companion nudging the bigger star, submitted to arXiv.org August 17.
Previous observers noticed Betelgeuse’s light varying on a roughly six-year cycle. In 1908, English astronomer Henry Cozier Plummer suggested the cycle could be from the gravity of a companion star tugging Betelgeuse back and forth.
You can download the two papers here and here. This quote from the first paper’s abstract not only explains why the star has not been detected previously, but suggests its doomed future:
The companion star would be nearly twenty times less massive and a million times fainter than Betelgeuse, with similar effective temperature, effectively hiding it in plain sight near one of the best-studied stars in the night sky. The astrometric data favor an edge-on binary with orbital plane aligned with Betelgeuse’s measured spin axis. Tidal spin-orbit interaction drains angular momentum from the orbit and spins up Betelgeuse, explaining the spin–orbit alignment and Betelgeuse’s anomalously rapid spin. In the future, the orbit will decay until the companion is swallowed by Betelgeuse in the next 10,000 years. [emphasis mine]
The presence and future capture of this small companion star will help astronomers better calculate future fluctuations of Betelgesue itself. That capture is also going to occur relatively soon, on astronomical time scales.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Okay, I’ll say it. So little companion star ‘Betelgesue’ will get swallowed by wandering big ‘Betelgesue’ and become super-sized ‘Betelgesue’.
“And it’s showtime!”
On the serious side; Given Betelgesue is expected to go supernova within 100K years, wouldn’t this potential collision become a tipping point?
I’d LOVE to see that merger!
If there is a companion star, we should be able to see it. Even a brown dwarf would be sucking in the material from the red giant and in theory, be very visible in the infrared spectrum. (although Sirius is the brightest star in the sky, Betelgeuse is the brightest in the “near infrared spectrum” obscuring other infrared signals nearby)
The exception is if the companion star is already hidden inside the atmosphere of the red giant causing the asymmetrical shape. (The stars mass is only about 10 to 20 times that of our Sun, and yet it’s diameter, if it was in our solar system, would reach out to the “astroid belt” giving plenty of room for another sun to be hidden inside its red atmosphere)
Perhaps this is the reason that it is so large with very little associated mass is because the two closely revolving objects is stirring up the gas/dust faster than it can fall back into the star. The magnetic induction alone would superheat both objects vaporizing stellar material into what we see. A boiling cauldron of super heated stellar mass.