A team led by Steve Howell claims to have discovered a possible stellar companion to the bright red star Betelgeuse, located at Orion’s shoulder. However, the detection is highly tentative due to limited observational evidence and doubts about its existence.
The suspicion that Betelgeuse has a companion dates back over a century, but it was never confirmed. Last year, a team argued that a companion could explain Betelgeuse’s position on and speed across the sky as well as its brightness. However, previous searches with the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory came up empty.
The new discovery was made using the Gemini North telescope in Hawai‘i and speckle imaging technique, which cuts through the blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere. The object appears six magnitudes fainter than Betelgeuse and weighs 1.5 Suns, making it a pre-main-sequence star that could become an A or B-type star if it finishes amassing gas.
The companion orbits Betelgeuse at just 4 astronomical units, placing it inside the star’s extended outer atmosphere. However, this proximity would make it vulnerable to drag from Betelgeuse’s diffuse atmosphere and extreme tidal forces, causing it to spiral into the star within 1,000 years.
If confirmed, the discovery could lead to powerful eruptions of gas and dust, altering Betelgeuse’s appearance in the night sky. The team will seek to monitor Betelgeuse for more concrete evidence, and astronomers warn that Betelgeuse is a ticking time bomb.
Source: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/betelgeuses-companion-has-been-found-or-has-it