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Credit & Copyright: Adam Block,
Steward Observatory,
University of Arizona
Explanation:
What's behind Betelgeuse?
One of the brighter and more unusual stars in the sky, the
red supergiant
star Betelgeuse can be found in the direction of famous constellation Orion.
Betelgeuse, however, is actually
well in front
of many of the constellation's other bright stars, and also in front of the greater
Orion Molecular Cloud Complex.
Numerically, light takes about 700 years to reach us from Betelgeuse, but about 1,300
years to reach us from the
Orion Nebula and its surrounding dust and gas.
All but the largest telescopes
see Betelgeuse as only a point of light,
but a point so bright that the
inherent blurriness created by the telescope and
Earth's atmosphere make it seem extended.
In the
featured long-exposure image, thousands of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy can
be seen in the background behind Betelgeuse, as well as dark dust from the
Orion Molecular Cloud, and some red-glowing emission
from hydrogen gas on the outskirts of the more distant
Lambda Orionis Ring.
Betelgeuse has recovered from
appearing unusually dim over the past six months, but is still expected to explode
in a
spectacular supernova
sometime in the next (about) 100,000 years.
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A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Betelgeuse
Publications with words: Betelgeuse
See also: