Like its movie doppelg\u00e4nger, Betelgeuse<\/a> is undead… sort of. Having exhausted all of its hydrogen fuel, it has now moved on to fusing helium atoms in its red giant phase, which explains its extreme size and brightness (the same thing is expected to happen to our Sun<\/a> in about 5 billion years). It went viral in 2019 for an event called the Great Dimming, during which the star grew so ominously dark that many astronomers thought it was on the verge of going supernova. The reality however, was less final\u2014the shadows obscuring the star were not a forecast of doom, but huge gobs of gas and dust it had belched out.<\/p>\n Related Story<\/p>\n Though Betelgeuse has been thought to have a companion star for hundreds of years, the monster\u2019s intense luminosity (up to 14,000 times brighter than the Sun<\/a>) blocked out anything in its vicinity. The constant swirling of Earth\u2019s thick atmosphere is also problematic\u2014with the atmosphere in the way, objects in space can appear blurred when observed from our planet\u2019s surface. While Hubble was able to observe what is now called the Great Dimming event from space and clear up fears of a supernova going off only 700 light-years away, it was impossible to see a companion through the enormous ejection of star stuff.<\/p>\n Eventually, astrophysicist Steve Howell\u2014a senior research scientist at NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center\u2014decided to observe Betelgeuse from the ground-based Gemini North telescope<\/a> at the dormant Mauna Kea volcano in Hawai\u2019i. Gemini\u2019s large aperture allowed for brighter images and made it ideal for spotting an object that might have previously been missed. Its hi-res camera is known as the \u2018Alopeke speckle imager<\/a>, and it uses an imaging technique based around ultra-short exposure times that freeze out atmospheric interference as the camera captures thousands upon thousands of images<\/a>. Any remaining signs of turbulence can be removed when the images are processed. <\/p>\n Shifts in the velocity, angle, and brightness of Betelgeuse previously sparked the idea that a hypothetical companion star may be behind some of the perturbations scientists see when observing the star<\/a>. Having had his eye on the red giant since the Great Dimming, Howell and his research team were insistent on finding an object that had eluded detection for so long. They were almost certain \u2018Alopeke would be able to glimpse at least some possible evidence of the companion\u2014if it existed. <\/p>\n \u201cIn a blind search for close stellar companions<\/a> to bright stars, the results presented here would be marginal, but the correspondence between our detection and the predicted location of the companion adds credence to the result,\u201d the team said in a study recently published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/a>. <\/p>\n Related Story<\/p>\n Howell\u2019s results showed possible evidence for a stellar companion at the outer edges of Betelgeuse\u2019s atmosphere\u2014right in the same location that had been predicted by astronomers and astrophysicists before him. The faint companion seems to be orbiting<\/a> at the same distance and angle suggested by those predictions. It will be more detectable when it reaches the point in its orbit that is the furthest away from the overwhelming brightness of Betelgeuse, which will be in November of 2027, so the follow-up observations should bring confirmation of the existence of this object one way or another. <\/p>\n The companion star also has a name (and no, it isn\u2019t Lydia). \u201cBetelgeuse\u201d actually translates from Arabic to \u201cthe hand of al-Jawza\u201d, referencing a mythological figure which was fully articulated in the sky by ancient astronomers. Her hands, feet, head, hair, and other features are illustrated by stars in the Jawza celestial complex<\/a>, also known as the Orion constellation. Howell felt it was only appropriate to keep with this theme in naming Betelgeuse\u2019s companion, and as such, it is now called \u201cSiwarha\u201d, or \u201cher bracelet.\u201d Betelgeuse and Siwarha will eventually merge.<\/p>\n