{"id":751796,"date":"2026-08-27T21:16:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/751796\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T21:16:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:16:15","slug":"want-to-see-a-star-in-close-up-astronomers-have-produced-one-of-the-most-detailed-images-of-betelgeuse-weve-ever-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/751796\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to see a star in close-up? Astronomers have produced one of the most detailed images of Betelgeuse we’ve ever seen"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a spectacular close-up view of the red giant star Betelgeuse, as seen by one of the most powerful telescopes on Earth.<\/p>\n

Betelgeuse<\/a> is an ageing star that forms one of the shoulders of the constellation Orion the Hunter, and is one of the most famous stars in the night sky.<\/p>\n

This image was captured under the dark skies of Chile’s Atacama Desert by the Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array.<\/p>\n

\"Artist'sArtist’s impression of a star going supernova. Credit: Magann \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

It shows Betelgeuse’s uneven surface, bright hotspots and an irregular outline caused by chaotic motions taking place within the star.<\/p>\n

But when astronomers looked back on older images of Betelgeuse and compared it with this one, they found something interesting.<\/p>\n

A new look at a dying star<\/p>\n

Betelgeuse is an ageing star approaching the final stages of its evolution. That means it will eventually explode as a supernova<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Its eventual fate as a supernova makes it fascinating to know what it actually looks like now,” says lead author of the study Bill Dent, an astronomer at ESO.<\/p>\n

Betelgeuse is about 600 lightyears from Earth, making it one of the closest red supergiants.<\/p>\n

It’s 800 times as wide as the Sun. and its colossal size and close distance mean astronomers are able to use observatories like ALMA to get a close-up view and see structures across its atmosphere that would remain hidden in most other stars.<\/p>\n

\"\"An image of Betelgeuse captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array in 2023 shows the star’s bumpy atmosphere. Credit: ALMA(ESO\/NAOJ\/NRAO)\/W. Dent et al.
\nWhy Betelgeuse is bumpy<\/p>\n

The observations seen here were made in 2023 and highlight the texture of Betelgeuse’s atmosphere, which has an average temperature of about 2,020\u00b0C (3,670\u00b0C).<\/p>\n

Two hotter regions can be seen on Betelgeuse in this image, with the brightest hotspot being about 526\u00b0C (980\u00b0F) hotter than the surrounding regions.<\/p>\n

Scientists say these structures could be connected to convective motions inside Betelgeuse.<\/p>\n

This is when hot gas rising from within the depths of the star generates shocks as it reaches the outer atmosphere. <\/p>\n

That’s what produces the bright, uneven features on Betelgeuse seen here.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn earlier image of Betelgeuse by ALMA shows a bright hotspot in the same region as the 2023 image. Credit: ESO\/NAOJ\/NRAO)\/E. O\u2019Gorman\/P. Kervella
\nA surprise find<\/p>\n

When astronomers compared these 2023 observations with similar ALMA data from 2015, the prominent hotspot in the top left of the star appeared in almost the same location and with a similar intensity.<\/p>\n

That means the feature has likely been there for at least seven years which, say astronomers, is much longer than the lifetimes of large convective structures predicted by theoretical models.<\/p>\n

ALMA also measured variations of up to about 6% in Betelgeuse’s apparent radius, showing it’s anything but spherical.<\/p>\n

Fainter emission from the star extends several stellar radii into Betelgeuse\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Read the full science paper<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is a spectacular close-up view of the red giant star Betelgeuse, as seen by one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-751796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}