"to the fields and plough. To the Inuit, the appearance of Betelgeuse and Bellatrix high in the southern sky after sunset marked the beginning of spring and lengthening days in late February and early March. The two stars were known as ""Akuttujuuk"" ""those (two) placed far apart"", referring to the distance between them, mainly to people from North Baffin Island and Melville Peninsula. The opposed locations of Orion and Scorpius, with their corresponding bright red variable stars Betelgeuse and Antares, were noted by ancient cultures around the world. The setting of Orion and rising of Scorpius signify the death of"
"as a red supergiant of spectral type M1-2, the star is one of the largest stars visible to the naked eye. If Betelgeuse were at the center of the Solar System, its surface would extend past the asteroid belt, completely engulfing the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and possibly Jupiter. However, there are several other red supergiants in the Milky Way that could be larger, such as Mu Cephei and VY Canis Majoris. Calculations of its mass range from slightly under ten to a little over twenty times that of the Sun. It is calculated to be 640 light-years"
"Betelgeuse, such stars ""may undergo rapid transitions from red to blue and vice versa on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, with accompanying rapid changes to their stellar winds and bow shocks."" Moreover, if future research bears out this hypothesis, Betelgeuse may prove to have traveled close to 200,000 AU as a red supergiant scattering as much as along its trajectory. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant that has evolved from an O-type main sequence star. Its core will eventually collapse, producing a supernova explosion and leaving behind a compact remnant. The details depend on the exact initial mass and other physical properties of"
"640 light-years from Earth, Betelgeuse shares with the much closer but smaller star Altair (and with R Doradus) the distinction that its image has been resolved by astronomers (see graphic). In another false-color image obtained by infrared interferometry two large, bright star spots spanning ~10 milliarcseconds are visible on the surface of Betelgeuse, possibly representing enormous convective cells rising from below the supergiant's surface. Because of these, Betelgeuse appears to change shape periodically, with a complex, asymmetric envelope that is the product of a colossal ongoing loss of mass, as huge plumes of gas are continuously expelled from its surface"
"loss making any total figure for Betelgeuse uncertain. Current observations suggest that a star like Betelgeuse may spend a portion of its lifetime as a red supergiant, but then cross back across the H-R diagram, pass once again through a brief yellow supergiant phase and then explode as a blue supergiant or Wolf-Rayet star. Astronomers may be close to solving this mystery. They noticed a large plume of gas extending at least six times its stellar radius indicating that Betelgeuse is not shedding matter evenly in all directions. The plume's presence implies that the spherical symmetry of the star's photosphere,"
"Collinder 69 Collinder 69 (Lambda Orionis Association) is an open star cluster located north-west of the star Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion. It is about five million years old and roughly away from the Sun. Included within the cluster is a double star named Meissa. With the rest of Orion, it is visible from the middle of August in the morning sky, to late April before Orion becomes too close to the Sun to be seen well. It can be seen from both the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere. The cluster is following an orbit through the Milky"
"Betelgeuse, depending on radial velocity fluctuations in the photosphere. Betelgeuse is the brightest near-infrared source in the sky with a J band magnitude of −2.99. As a result, only about 13% of the star's radiant energy is emitted in the form of visible light. If human eyes were sensitive to radiation at all wavelengths, Betelgeuse would appear as the brightest star in the sky. Various catalogues list up to nine faint visual companions to Betelgeuse. They are at distances of about one to four arc-minutes and all are fainter than 10th magnitude. Betelgeuse is generally considered to be a single"
"Betelgeuse. Rigel has a color index (B–V) of −0.03, meaning it appears white or slightly blue-white. Culminating at midnight on 12 December, and at 9 pm on 24 January, Rigel is most visible in winter evenings in the northern hemisphere and summer in the southern. In the southern hemisphere, Rigel is the first bright star of Orion visible as the constellation rises. In stellar navigation, Rigel is one of the most important navigation stars, since it is bright, easily located and equatorial, which means it is visible all around the world's oceans (the exception, areas within 8° of the North"
"one of multiple events occurring in Betelgeuse's surrounding atmosphere. Astronomers have identified at least six shells surrounding Betelgeuse. Solving the mystery of mass loss in the late stages of a star's evolution may reveal those factors that precipitate the explosive deaths of these stellar giants. In the night sky, Betelgeuse is easy to spot with the naked eye owing to its distinctive orange-red color. In the Northern Hemisphere, beginning in January of each year, it can be seen rising in the east just after sunset. By mid-September to mid-March (best in mid-December), it is visible to virtually every inhabited region"
"of the globe, except for a few research stations in Antarctica at latitudes south of 82°. In May (moderate northern latitudes) or June (southern latitudes), the red supergiant can be seen briefly on the western horizon after sunset, reappearing again a few months later on the eastern horizon before sunrise. In the intermediate period (June–July) it is invisible to the naked eye (visible only with a telescope in daylight), unless around midday (when the Sun is below horizon) on Antarctic regions between 70° and 80° south latitude. Betelgeuse is a variable star whose brightness ranges between 0.0 and 1.3. There"
"objects to about magnitude +3. Forced observations of brighter stars mean that final results should be available for all bright stars and a parallax for Betelgeuse will be published an order of magnitude more accurate than currently available. Betelgeuse is classified as a semiregular variable star, indicating that some periodicity is noticeable in the brightness changes, but amplitudes may vary, cycles may have different lengths, and there may be standstills or periods of irregularity. It is placed in subgroup SRc; these are pulsating red supergiants with amplitudes around one magnitude and periods from tens to hundreds of days. Betelgeuse typically"
"and mass-loss properties. A series of spectropolarimetric observations obtained in 2010 with the Bernard Lyot Telescope at Pic du Midi Observatory revealed the presence of a weak magnetic field at the surface of Betelgeuse, suggesting that the giant convective motions of supergiant stars are able to trigger the onset of a small-scale dynamo effect. Betelgeuse has no known orbital companions, so its mass cannot be calculated by that direct method. Modern mass estimates from theoretical modelling have produced values of , with values of – from older studies. It has been calculated that Betelgeuse began its life as a star"
"carbon, and a high proportion of C relative to C, all indicative of a star that has experienced the first dredge-up. However, the first dredge-up occurs soon after a star reaches the red supergiant phase and so this only means that Betelgeuse has been a red supergiant for at least a few thousand years. The best prediction is that Betelgeuse has already spent around 40,000 years as a red supergiant, having left the main sequence perhaps one million years ago. The current mass can be estimated from evolutionary models from the initial mass and the expected mass lost so far."
"(see ""Tony and the Beetles"" by Philip K. Dick, below). There is some evidence for the existence of close stellar companions of Betelgeuse, orbiting it ""within"" its gaseous envelope (see ""From a Changeling Star"" by Jeffrey Carver and the television series ""Space Battleship Yamato"", below). Astronomers believe that this tremendous star is only 10 million years old, but has evolved rapidly because of its great mass. Currently in a late stage of stellar evolution, it is expected to erupt in a Type II supernova, possibly within the next million years (see ""From a Changeling Star"" by Jeffrey Carver, ""Transit of"
"are periods when it will surpass Rigel to become the sixth brightest star, and occasionally will be even brighter than Capella. At its faintest Betelgeuse can fall behind Deneb and Beta Crucis, themselves both slightly variable, to be the 20th-brightest star. Betelgeuse has a color index (B–V) of 1.85—a figure which points to its advanced ""redness"". The photosphere has an extended atmosphere, which displays strong lines of emission rather than absorption, a phenomenon that occurs when a star is surrounded by a thick gaseous envelope (rather than ionized). This extended gaseous atmosphere has been observed moving away from and towards"
"Beg's ""Zij-i Sultani"" as ""rubedo"", Latin for ""ruddiness"". In the nineteenth century, before modern systems of stellar classification, Angelo Secchi included Betelgeuse as one of the prototypes for his Class III (orange to red) stars. By contrast, three centuries before Ptolemy, Chinese astronomers observed Betelgeuse as having a yellow coloration; if accurate, such an observation could suggest the star was in a yellow supergiant phase around the beginning of the Christian era, a possibility given current research into the complex circumstellar environment of these stars. The variation in Betelgeuse's brightness was first described in 1836 by Sir John Herschel, when"
"and associated nebula spans a few hundred light-years centred about 1400 light-years away. The broad nebula shown is not visible unaided, with binoculars or small amateur telescopes. It becomes clear in long-exposure photographs, such as in the first illustration on this page. Orange giant phi2 Orionis at about 116 light years is currently in the line of sight between Lamda Ori and Betelgeuse is not part of this region, often appearing so due to projection effects. HD 34989 is a Blue-white main sequence star, visible magnified only, between Lambda Ori. and Bellatrix. It has a small nebulous cloud more geared"
"of a man-figure (Orion)—the Taulipang of Brazil know the constellation as Zililkawai, a hero whose leg was cut off by his wife, with the variable light from Betelgeuse linked to the severing of the limb. Similarly, the Lakota people of North America see it as a chief whose arm has been severed. The Wardaman people of northern Australia knew the star as ""Ya-jungin"" ""Owl Eyes Flicking"", its variable light signifying its intermittent watching of ceremonies led by the Red Kangaroo Leader Rigel. In South African mythology, Betelgeuse was perceived as a lion casting a predatory gaze toward the three zebras"
"The star's unusual name inspired the title of the 1988 film ""Beetlejuice"", and script writer Michael McDowell was impressed by how many people made the connection. In the popular science fiction series ""The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"" by Douglas Adams, Ford Prefect was from ""a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse."" Two American navy ships were named after the star, both of them World War II vessels, the launched in 1939 and launched in 1944. In 1979, a French supertanker named ""Betelgeuse"" was moored off Whiddy Island discharging oil when it exploded, killing 50 people in one"
"lack an alpha star altogether. (Constellations with no alpha include Vela and Puppis – both formerly part of Argo Navis, whose alpha is Canopus in Carina.) Orion provides a good example of Bayer's method. Bayer first designated Betelgeuse and Rigel, the two 1st-magnitude stars (those of magnitude 1.5 or less), as Alpha and Beta from north to south, with Betelgeuse (the shoulder) coming ahead of Rigel (the foot), even though the latter is usually the brighter. (Betelgeuse is a variable star and can at its maximum occasionally outshine Rigel.) Bayer then repeated the procedure for the stars of the 2nd"
"to cause significant effects on Earth. Following Betelgeuse's supernova, a small dense remnant will be left behind, either a neutron star or black hole. This is predicted to be a neutron star of approximately . Betelgeuse has been known as ""Betelgeux"", and in German ""Beteigeuze"" (according to Bode). ""Betelgeux"" and ""Betelgeuze"" were used until the early 20th century, when the spelling ""Betelgeuse"" became universal. Consensus on its pronunciation is weak and is as varied as its spellings: Betelgeuse is often mistranslated as ""armpit of the central one"". In his 1899 work ""Star-Names and Their Meanings"", American amateur naturalist Richard Hinckley"
"Eagle Nebula The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, and as NGC 6611, and also known as the Star Queen Nebula and The Spire) is a young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens, discovered by Jean-Philippe de Chéseaux in 1745–46. Both the ""Eagle"" and the ""Star Queen"" refer to visual impressions of the dark silhouette near the center of the nebula, an area made famous as the ""Pillars of Creation"" imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions, including the aforementioned Pillars of Creation. The Eagle Nebula is"
"Pegasus (constellation) Pegasus is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the winged horse Pegasus in Greek mythology. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and is one of the 88 constellations recognised today. With an apparent magnitude varying between 2.37 and 2.45, the brightest star in Pegasus is the orange supergiant Epsilon Pegasi, also known as Enif, which marks the horse's muzzle. Alpha (Markab), Beta (Scheat), and Gamma (Algenib), together with Alpha Andromedae (Alpheratz, once also designated Delta Pegasi) form the large asterism known as the ""Square of Pegasus"". Twelve star systems"
"uncertain, but models with slow to moderate initial rotation rates produce the best matches to Betelgeuse's current properties. That main sequence version of Betelgeuse would have been a hot luminous star with a spectral type such as O9V. A star would take between 11.5 and 15 million years to reach the red supergiant stage, with more rapidly-rotating stars taking the longest. Rapidly-rotating stars take only 9.3 million years to reach the red supergiant stage, while stars with slow rotation take only 8.1 million years. These form the best estimates of Betelgeuse's current age, with a preferred age since the zero"
"Betelgeuse has a highly complex atmosphere, with a temperature of , similar to that recorded on the star's surface but much lower than surrounding gas in the same region. The VLA images also show this lower-temperature gas progressively cools as it extends outward. Although unexpected, it turns out to be the most abundant constituent of Betelgeuse's atmosphere. ""This alters our basic understanding of red-supergiant star atmospheres"", explained Jeremy Lim, the team's leader. ""Instead of the star's atmosphere expanding uniformly due to gas heated to high temperatures near its surface, it now appears that several giant convection cells propel gas from"
"estimate of 55.2 ± 0.5 milliarcseconds (mas)—a figure entirely consistent with Michelson's findings eighty years earlier. At the time of its publication, the estimated parallax from the Hipparcos mission was 7.63 ± 1.64 mas, yielding an estimated radius for Betelgeuse of 3.6 AU. However, an infrared interferometric study published in 2009 announced that the star had shrunk by 15% since 1993 at an increasing rate without a significant diminution in magnitude. Subsequent observations suggest that the apparent contraction may be due to shell activity in the star's extended atmosphere. In addition to the star's diameter, questions have arisen about the"
"cooling hydrogen ejected by the supernova. Due to misunderstandings caused by the 2009 publication of the star's 15% contraction, apparently of its outer atmosphere, Betelgeuse has frequently been the subject of scare stories and rumors suggesting that it will explode within a year, leading to exaggerated claims about the consequences of such an event. The timing and prevalence of these rumors have been linked to broader misconceptions of astronomy, particularly to doomsday predictions relating to the Mayan calendar. Betelgeuse is not likely to produce a gamma-ray burst and is not close enough for its x-rays, ultraviolet radiation, or ejected material"
"is the Winter Triangle (also known as the Great Southern Triangle), an approximately equilateral triangle that shares two vertices (Sirius and Procyon) with the larger asterism. The third vertex is Betelgeuse, which lies near the center of the hexagon. These three stars are three of the ten brightest objects, as viewed from Earth, outside the Solar System. Betelgeuse is also particularly easy to locate, being a shoulder of Orion, which assists stargazers in finding the triangle. Once the triangle is located, the larger hexagon may then be found. Several of the stars in the hexagon may also be found independently"
"were known as ""Akuttujuuk"" ""those (two) placed far apart"", referring to the distance between them, mainly to people from North Baffin Island and Melville Peninsula. \end{align}</math></ref> Bellatrix Bellatrix, also designated Gamma Orionis (γ Orionis, abbreviated Gamma Ori, γ Ori), is the third-brightest star in the constellation of Orion, 5° west of the red giant Alpha Orionis (Betelgeuse). Just between the first and second magnitude and slightly variable, it is about the 25th-brightest star in the night sky. Bellatrix is a massive star with about 8.6 times the Sun's mass. It has an estimated age of approximately 25 million years—old enough"
"real, due to pulsations in the atmosphere. The star is also a slow rotator and the most recent velocity recorded was 5 km/s—much slower than Antares which has a rotational velocity of 20 km/s. The rotation period depends on Betelgeuse's size and orientation to Earth, but it has been calculated to take 8.4 years to turn on its axis. In 2004, astronomers using computer simulations speculated that even if Betelgeuse is not rotating it might exhibit large-scale magnetic activity in its extended atmosphere, a factor where even moderately strong fields could have a meaningful influence over the star's dust, wind"
"Most of the Western names of stars, such as Algol or Betelgeuse, are Arabic in origin. In 1603 the Augsburg lawyer-uranographer Johann Bayer introduced the current classificatory system for the brighter stars, in which stars are identified as belonging to their constellations by Greek letters, in (roughly) descending order of brightness; so that Regulus, brightest star in Leo, is called ""α Leonis"", the brightest star of the Lion. Unpredictable observations in the heavens, including novas and supernovas as well as other phenomena in the heavens such as comets, meteors, parhelions, and even rainbows, were all collected under the name of"
"Bellatrix Bellatrix, also designated Gamma Orionis (γ Orionis, abbreviated Gamma Ori, γ Ori), is the third-brightest star in the constellation of Orion, 5° west of the red giant Alpha Orionis (Betelgeuse). Just between the first and second magnitude and slightly variable, it is about the 25th-brightest star in the night sky. Bellatrix is a massive star with about 8.6 times the Sun's mass. It has an estimated age of approximately 25 million years—old enough for a star of this mass to consume the hydrogen at its core and begin to evolve away from the main sequence into a giant star."
"that main sequence star. The initial mass of Betelgeuse can only be estimated by testing different stellar evolutionary models to match its current observed properties. The unknowns of both the models and the current properties mean that there is considerable uncertainty in Betelgeuse's initial appearance, but its mass is usually estimated to have been in the range of , with modern models finding values of . Its chemical makeup can be reasonably assumed to have been around 70% hydrogen, 28% helium, and 2.4% heavy elements, slightly more metal-rich than the Sun but otherwise similar. The initial rotation rate is more"