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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.