Astronomical discovery
The giant Bételgese star is not alone in its universe
Astronomers have discovered a companion orbiting the famous red super giant. This little star explains the light variations that have intrigued scientists for a long time.
Discovery of a stamped star in tight orbit around the Betelgere red supergeant, captured by the Alopeke instrument on the Gemini North telescope.
AFP/International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani
Bételgeuse starone of the brightest in the galaxy and whose mysterious pale had raised fears of an imminent end, has a companion star whose existence was only supposed recently.
“A friend for Bételgeuse …” titled last December in The Astrophysical Journal a study of astronomers, predicting that a young star close to the red super giant would explain a regular variation of his brightness. Bételgeuse, clearly visible to the naked eye in the Orion constellation, is customary of such surprises for those who observe it.
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She had pale spectacularly five months for between 2019 and 2020, suggesting an imminent end. Before observations concluded that the star was ejected by the star and a cooling of its surface to explain the phenomenon.
It remained to explain the origin of its two curves of light, the slow pulses of its apparent light, which are approximately 400 days respectively for one and almost 6 years for the other.
Companion
The head of the longest light curve is a small star, according to a study by NASA astronomers published Monday in The Astrophysical Journal.
From a mass estimated only once and a half that of our sun, tiny compared to that of Bételgeuse, which is almost a thousand times more than our star, the star orbit his partner at a relatively low distance, of the order of four times that separating the earth from the sun.
It is the first detection of an orbit star as close to a super giant star, according to the press release Unaffectedthe American organization operating in particular the international observatory Gemini, which allowed these observations.
The detection of the small star, which its low light compared to that of Bételgeuse makes it particularly difficult, was made possible with a so -called tavling interferometry technique. Which consists in assembling fixed and very brief images of a star to get rid of atmospheric turbulence which disturb the observation by terrestrial telescopes.
AFP
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