Astronomy Scientists find giant, hidden gas cloud only 300 light-years away: ... Dust cloud caused Betelgeuse star's weird dimming, study finds. News. By Mike Wall published 17 June 2021 ...

In late 2019 and early 2020, Betelgeuse blew its top. ... An infrared image of Betelgeuse shows it's surrounded by a vast cloud of gas with copious amounts of silicates and alumina.

About a year before the Great Dimming, Betelgeuse let out a giant belch of gas, releasing a cloud of hydrogen and other atoms. Then, by chance, a giant swath of the stellar surface cooled down.

Great Dimming: Betelgeuse as observed in 2019–20 (Courtesy: ESO/M Montargès et al.) The dramatic dimming of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse in 2019–20 was caused by a cold spot on the surface of ...

Once the gas bubble was millions of miles from the hot star, it cooled and formed a dust cloud that temporarily blocked the star's light. The star returned to its normal brightness by April 2020.

The mystery of Betelgeuse's dimming has been solved, thanks to observations which show that the star was obscured by a cloud of dust. Skip to main content. Menu Digital Trends ...

Astronomers say they’ve closed the case on the mysterious and unprecedented dimming of the supergiant star Betelgeuse in 2019 and 2020. A new study says that the event was caused by a ...

Betelgeuse, it now appears, experienced a mass-loss episode about a year before the Great Dimming, in which the star released an enormous bubble of gas.

Betelgeuse is a so-called red supergiant, 887 times as large as our own sun. Its surface, like the sun’s, ... The gas cloud was about as big as the star.

For one of the brightest stars in the sky, Betelgeuse still has some surprises up its sleeve. We’ve known for a couple of years it’s surrounded by a cloud of gas, but new observations show ...

Betelgeuse dimming over time, with cloud seen in last panel. NASA, ESA, and E. Wheatley (STScI) That said, we still don’t know what caused the sudden brightening – it is now 50% brighter than ...

The gas cloud was about as big as the star. It hung around Betelgeuse as gas because the region around the star was still too warm for the cloud to condense into dust until the next cycle of ...