Betelgeuse
Related Category: Astronomy: Stars
(bt´ljz´´), bright star in the constellation Orion; Bayer designation &agr; Orionis; 1992 position R.A. 5h54.8m, Dec. +7°24&minut;.
Betelgeuse
For the movie, see Beetlejuice.
dec =
appmag_v = +0.58
Betelgeuse (Alpha (α) Orionis) is a semiregular variable star located 427 light-years away [1].
BETELGEUSE (Alpha Orionis). The great star Betelgeuse is one of the two that dominate mighty Orion of northern winter, the other Rigel, the pair respectively also called Alpha and Beta Orionis.
Betelgeuse is a massive star as well. It may contain as much as 20 times the mass of the sun. Because of its large mass, Betelgeuse is a star that will run through its life history fairly quickly.
Betelgeuse is the 12th brightest star in the sky. It is called Alpha Orionis even though it is fainter than Beta Orionis (Rigel). This is because Betelgeuse, a variable star, was misclassified. Take a look at the list of the Brightest Stars ...
Betelgeuse is one of the 'shoulder' stars in the constellation Orion, the hunter; it is 600 times larger than our own Sun and radiates an impressive 100,000 times more energy.
Betelgeuse: The Next Supernova?
Click on image for full size
Image from the Hubble Space Telescope, reproduced with permission from AURA/STScI.
What's in a Name: ...
Betelgeuse
Orionis
Rigel
BM Orionis
A peculiar eclipsing binary (B2-B3) in the Trapezium, with a flat-bottomed light curve suggesting a total eclipse. The spectrum of the secondary has never been seen. [H76]
FU Orionis ...
Betelgeuse ( Ori)
(a) A red supergiant star in the constellation Orion and the brightest red supergiant in Earth's sky.
(b) A red semiregular variable supergiant (M2 Iab) about 500 pc distant.
BETELGEUSE
(pronounced "beetle juice") Betelgeuse (alpha Orionis) is the second-brightest star in the constellation called Orion and one of the brightest stars in the sky.
Betelgeuse, a red supergiant in Orion.
When huge stars grow old, they become even more enormous red supergiants (as their core fuses all the hydrogen into helium). Their core shrinks, becoming hotter and denser.
Betelgeuse rises about midnight, NZ time. At about 4.30 am Aldebaran in Taurus, Betelgeuse and Procyon, in Canis Minor form an arc from north to north east as seen from New Zealand.
Betelgeuse is an old star and is so massive that when it explodes in a few thousand years it will become so bright it will be visible during the day.
Bellatrix the left shoulder is known as the "Amazon star". It's the 22nd brightest star.
Betelgeuse has a declination of 7 degrees 24 minutes (roughly) and Rigel's is -08 degrees 12 minutes. This is a difference of a little over 15.5 degrees. So you could describe Rigel as 10º west of Betelgeuse and 15.5º south.
Betelgeuse (α Ori) has a measured parallax of 7.63 ± 1.64 mas (milliarcseconds). What is the range in distance to Betelgeuse?
Betelgeuse is in the Northern (Celestial) Hemisphere, only 7o above the Celestial Equator so we say it has a declination of +7o. Northern stars have a positive declination. Southern stars have a negative declination.
Betelgeuse is so huge that, if it replaced the Sun at the center of our Solar System, its outer atmosphere would extend past the orbit of Jupiter (scale at lower left).
Betelgeuse, a star of spectral type M
In astronomy, stars of spectral type M (the stars with the coolest temperature) are classified as red stars.
Betelgeuse (M2), Barnard's Star (M5)
We should not underestimate the importance of the early work in classifying stellar spectra.
Example: Betelgeuse (supergiant) Examples: Proxima Centauri, Barnard's star, Gliese 581 (red dwarf) Example: LEHPM 2-59 (subdwarf) Examples: Teide 1 (field brown dwarf), GSC 08047-00232 B (companion brown dwarf)
Extended spectral types ...
Antares, Betelgeuse
L
Strong metal-hydride molecular bands (CrH, FeH), and neutral metals; TiO and VO bands are nearly absent.
K = ~1300-2500; M < 0.09; L = 10-5-10-6 ...
Orion system
Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis)
Rigel (Beta Orionis)
Rigel system ...
Betelgeuse - a truly giant supergiant. The shoulder star of Orion is so large that its size can actually be seen in the Hubble Space Telescope (most stars are so far away that they always look like dots unless they have a really huge diameter, ...
Alpha Orionis - Betelgeuse
Alpha Orionis, commonly known as Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star marking the shoulder of the winter constellation Orion the Hunter.
added article about Betelgeuse's atmosphere to Current Events page
added article to update status of Mars Exploration Rover Spirit to Current Events page
added article on widest lensed quasar found to Current Events page ...
Alpha Orionis is called Betelgeuse (pronounced BET-ell-juice), one of the most famous yet misunderstood star names. It comes from the Arabic yad al-jauza, often wrongly translated as ‘armpit of the central one'.
The northern solstice point stands about halfway between the bright ruddy star Betelgeuse of the constellation Orion, and the star Theta Aurigae of the constellation Auriga.
As an extra challenge, calculate the time it would take to reach Betelgeuse, a red giant located 600 light years away. First convert light years into kilometers. 5.7 x 1015 km Traveling at 1000 km/hr.
The group at the top right, including Betelgeuse and Aldebaran, are Red Giants. The group at the bottom left, including Sirius B, are White Dwarfs.
Betelgeuse, the bright red star in the top left corner of the Orion constellation, is an example of a supergiant star. If placed at the center of our solar system, all of the planets out to Jupiter would be inside Betelgeuse.
One of these is the star Betelgeuse (pronounced "Beetle-juice", like the Michael Keaton character). This star is a red giant. This means that this star has already burnt its hydrogen fuel, has collapsed, and started burning helium.
[5972] alpha Orionis or Betelgeuse ("the hand of the central one"), the second brightest star in the constellation, is also the twelfth brightest star in the sky.
In 2007, Altair became the first star, other than a giant or supergiant star (such as Betelgeuse), to have its surface ts surface features imaged.
For example, take the three brightest stars in Orion (Rigel, Betelgeuse and Bellatrix): they are 250, 150 and 210 parsecs away respectively (1 parsec = 1pc = 3.26 Light Years).
Stars range in size from neutron stars, which vary anywhere from 20 to 40 km in diameter, to supergiants like Betelgeuse in the Orion constellation, which has a diameter approximately 650 times larger than the Sun — about 0.9 billion kilometres.
Its normal life over, Betelgeuse is now a red supergiant - red, because its surface is a comparatively cool red-hot, and supergiant, because it is hundreds of times larger than the Sun and ten times more massive.
(Note: Some lists name Betelgeuse in Orion as the tenth brightest star, but Betelgeuse is a variable star making its ranking difficult).
For example, the bright red star in the shoulder region of the constellation Orion (the Hunter) is called Betelgeuse, which comes from Arabic and means (roughly) "the armpit of the mighty one" (see adjacent figure).
This large nebula is located about 9°30' SEE of Betelgeuse and just 2° NEE of e Monocerotis (see finder chart below). It covers an area is over twice the diameter of the Full Moon and could be spoted in larger binoculars.
It is also enclosed on three sides by the bright stars of the Winter Triangle (Sirius, Procyon and Betelgeuse).
An old, bright star, much larger and cooler than the Sun. Betelgeuse (alpha Orionis) is an example of a red giant.
Spectral Class (Spectral Type)
A classification scheme that groups stars according to their surface temperatures and spectral features.
Named stars: Alpha Ori (Beteigeuze/Betelgeuse), Beta Ori (Rigel), Gamma Ori (Bellatrix), Delta Ori (Mintaka), Epsilon Ori (Alnilam), Zeta Ori (Alnitak)
Info:
Pavo (Peacock) ...
The "Heart of the Scorpion". A red supergiant, almost as large as Betelgeuse. Can be occulted by the Moon. One of the 4 "royal" stars near the ecliptic (Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares, and Fomalhaut).
17
Pollux ...
Benetnasch Eta Ursae Majoris
Betelgeuse Alpha Orionis
Betria Beta Trianguli Australis
Bharani 41 Arietis
Biham Theta Pegasi
Birdun Epsilon Centauri
Botein Delta Arietis
Brachium Sigma Librae
Bunda Xi Aquarii ...
A highly evolved, orange-red giant star, Edasich is
still much smaller than the red supergiant Betelgeuse,
at left. (See a Digitized Sky Survey image of Edasich
at John Whatmough's web site, "Extrasolar Visions.") ...
March 11, 2004: Spirit looked up with its panoramic camera for a nighttime observation of the constellation Orion the Hunter in the martian sky. The bright star Betelgeuse and Orion's three-star belt appear in the eight-second exposure.
It rises well to the left of Orion, and lines up with the constellation's two brightest stars, Betelgeuse (which also looks orange) and Rigel. This 2001 Hubble Space Telescope image provides a closeup view of the planet. [NASA] ...
(See Big Bang theory and Stellar evolution.) They range in size from the tiny neutron stars (which are actually dead stars) no bigger than a city, to supergiants like the North Star (Polaris) and Betelgeuse, in the Orion constellation, ...
Canis Minor can be found by looking above the constellation of Canis Major. The star Procyon, along with Sirius in Canis Major and Betelgeuse in Orion create the asterism known as the "Winter Triangle".
In turn, these are subdivided into a small number of subclasses designated by the first few letters of the lower case English alphabet; for example, the Sun is a G2 V star (also sometimes denoted as a dwarf G2 star) and Betelgeuse (a Orionis) is ...
While the central star group is about 10 light years in diameter the outer group is spread over 80 light years. Astronomical studies of the sky show the Hyades moving eastward in the sky toward Betelgeuse in Orion.
Examples of well-known stars in the RG phase are Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) and Mira (Omicron Ceti). More massive Main Sequence stars evolve more quickly and expand further to become Red Super Giants (RSG). Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis) is a well-known ...
 See also: Star, Sun, Orion, Sky, Light
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