Betelgeuse Merely Burped, Astronomers Conclude

The dramatic dimming of the red supergiant in 2019 was the product of dust, not a prelude to destruction, a new study has found.

Betelgeuse, to put it most politely, burped. In the autumn of 2019 the star, a red supergiant at the shoulder of the constellation Orion the Hunter, began to dim drastically to less than half its usual brightness, and some astronomers worried — or perhaps were hoping — that it would explode in a supernova. Astronomers now say that dust was the culprit in the Great Dimming and that Betelgeuse itself was responsible for that dust. A giant blob of gas erupted from the star, the story goes, and then cooled off and condensed into solid particles that temporarily veiled their origin.