Betelgeuse Explained

At the beginning of 2020, the world held its collective breath as a nearby behemoth star, called Betelgeuse, start to dramatically fade. Could this mean the star is about to go supernova? With the recent flutter of news activity settling down, we are now finally starting to understand what might have really happened. Today, we take a deep dive into what makes massive stars like this tick, and then get into how we might have now finally come up with answers to this bizarre event.

An educational video written and presented by Prof. David Kipping.

You can now support our research and the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia University

Chapters

References

► Fuller, J. & Ro, S., 2018, "Presupernova outbursts via wave heating in massive stars II. Hydrogenpoor stars", MNRAS 476, 1853

► Dimming plots come from @betelbot () Twitter account run by Michael Hippke, which collates AAVSO data.

► Gerhz, R. et al., 2020, "Betelgeuse remains steadfast in the infrared", Astronomer's Telegram #13518

► Sukhbold, T. & Adams, A., 2019, "Missing Red Supergiants and Carbon Burning", MNRAS 492, 2578

► Dolan, M. et al. 2020, "Evolutionary tracks for Betelgeuse", ApJ 819, 7

► Adams, S. et al., 2017, "The search for failed supernovae with the Large Binocular Telescopeconfirmation of a disappearing star", MNRAS 468, 4968

► Levesque, E. & Massey, P., 2020, "Betelgeuse Just Isn't That CoolEffective Temperature Alone Cannot Explain the Recent Dimming of Betelgeuse", arXiv preprint

Videos used:

► Simulation of forming protostars by Matthew Bate, The UK Astrophysics Fluid Facility, University of Leicester

► Planet formation animation by Zhaohuan Zhu, Princeton

► Animation of a white dwarf by VideoFromSpace

► Core collapse supernova animation by KuoChuan Pan

► Animation of the Sun becoming a giant, credit ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)

► Animation of a giant star, credit ESO/M. Kornmesser

► Supernova animation, credit NASA/CXC/A.Hobart

► Neutron star collapsing animation, credit NASA/CXC/A.Hobart

► Sunspsot rotating into view video by NASA/SDO

► Hot iron video by Aaron Walsh, "Iron Born An Artist Blacksmith"

► KDIST grabulation video courtesy of NSO/NSF/AURA

► Betelgeuse convection animations by Bernd Freytag

► Betelgeuse convection animation downgrade by Brendan Drachler

(@BrendanDrachler)

► Coronal mass ejection video from NASA/SDO

► "What will it look like when Betelgeuse Goes Supernova" by V101 Science

► ESO dome supernova animation 2 and 3and

► Sun forming animation by Bob Stanford

Images used:

► Interferometric images by NASA/ESO/M. Montarges et al.

► HD 12545 images by K.Strassmeier, Vienna, NOAO/AURA/NSF

► Betelgeuse dust wave/bow shocock image courtesy of ESA/Herschel/PACS/L. Decin

► Thumbnail image is an artist's impression of NGC 1068, credit to NRAO/AUI/NSF, D. Berry/Skyworks

TV/Movie clips used:

► Sunshine (2007) Fox Searchlight Pictures

► How the Universe Works (2018) Pioneer Productions

All music used is licensed by SoundStripe.com/Creative Commons:

► Cylinder Seven, Cylinder Five & Cylinder Two () by Chris Zabriskie; licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license ()

► "Waking Up" by Atlas, licensed through SoundStripe.com

► Music from Neptune Flux, "Stories About the World That Once Was" by Chris Zabriskie (); licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license

► "Selha" by Stephen Keech, licensed through SoundStripe.com

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