Just in time for Halloween: new radio observations show Betelgeuse’s small companion star, Siwarha (“her bracelet”), plowing through the red supergiant’s huge atmosphere and leaving a wake like a boat on a lake.
What they found
- Data from 2021 to 2026 from the Very Large Array and ALMA shows Betelgeuse’s atmosphere stretches into an egg shape when Siwarha is farthest away, then rounds out when it passes in front or behind.
- Betelgeuse has mostly recovered from its 2020 “Great Dimming.”
- Siwarha, confirmed earlier this year, likely explains the star’s roughly 2,100-day brightening and dimming cycle.
Betelgeuse sits about 650 light-years away, marking Orion’s shoulder.
My take
A star so big another star orbits inside its atmosphere. “He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name” (Psalm 147:4). Orion is rising late these nights. Go look.
God Bless, and Use the Source!
