Observations of the star Betelgeuse taken by the ESO's Very Large Telescope in January and December 2019, which show the star's substantial dimming. TORONTO -- After months of scientific speculation that a giant red star could be nearing the end of its life following a drastic dimming, scientists now have a new theory on the dazzling star’s decline.has been significantly dimming since October.
"Red supergiants will occasionally shed material from their surfaces, which will condense around the star as dust,” said Emily Levesque, an associate professor of Astronomy at the University of Washington,. “As it cools and dissipates, the dust grains will absorb some of the light heading toward us and block our view."
The researchers came to this conclusion after measuring the temperature of the supergiant, something that is no easy task when you’re talking about a celestial body. Scientists can’t exactly stick a thermometer into a star. Instead, to determine temperature, they measure the spectrum of the light it’s emitting.
If Betelgeuse was dimming because of instability in the core causing material to move to the surface and cool there -- one of the theories that pointed to an imminent supernova -- than Levesque and Massey would have seen a much greater decrease in temperature.
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