Humanity has marveled at the vivid star Betelgeuse for many millennia. Over two thousand years ago, this imperious red object in the constellation Orion caught the eye of the Roman poet Horace:
But see, with what a troubled glare Orion’s star is setting there!
Today the colossal, easy-to-find star — so large that it would reach to Jupiter in our solar system — continues to intrigue us. And unlike most stars, we can see it changing, in part because it’s relatively nearby in our galaxy. Betelgeuse is known for being a type of “variable star,” meaning its brightness fluctuates, at times dramatically, as it inches toward an eventual grandiose collapse and stellar explosion, known as a supernova. In recent years, the star has grown noticeably brighter.
“People love Betelgeuse,” Heidi Morris, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the president of Pajarito Astronomers, an astronomy club, told Mashable. “It’s been doing these brightness fluctuations for a very long time.”
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