SAY ITS NAME THREE TIMES AND IT APPEARS
·Updated:
·

​Betelgeuse is one of the largest stars known to astronomers, with a radius about 1,400 times larger than that of the Sun. It's a red supergiant on the verge of becoming a supernova, and astronomers have studied it to unlock the secrets of red supergiants for years. In the past, they've discovered that it has a plume of gas almost as large as our entire solar system, plus a giant bubble boiling away on its surface.

Now, a state-of-the-art telescope in the Chilean Andes has captured the highest-resolution image of Betelgeuse ever.

 ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/E. O'Gorman/P. Kervella

The telescope that captured this image, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), "comprises 66 high-precision antennas, spread over distances of up to 16 kilometres" and is "the largest ground-based astronomical project in existence." The new image has given astronomers new information about how temperature differences affect supergiants' shape.

In this picture, ALMA observes the hot gas of the lower chromosphere of Betelgeuse at sub-millimeter wavelengths — where localised increased temperatures explain why it is not symmetric. 

[Read more]


Considering that Betelgeuse is 600 light-years away, the resolution of this image is pretty stunning.

Want more stories like this?

Every day we send an email with the top stories from Digg.

Subscribe