The companion star "has an estimated mass of about 1.5 times that of the Sun and appears to be an A- or B-type main pre-sequence star, i.e. a hot, young, bluish-white star that has not yet begun to burn hydrogen in its core... The companion is located at a relatively close distance to Betelgeuse, about 4 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. This discovery is the first time a stellar companion has been detected orbiting so close to a red supergiant star. Even more surprising is that the companion orbits inside Betelgeuse's outer atmosphere."
The submitted URL was https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2523/, but for some reason is frequently returning the Spanish version of the article. We replaced it with a link to a third-party article and will include the noirlab.edu link at the top.
dumb question: If a pre-sequence star is assimilated into a larger EOL star, does all the newly assimilated fuel delay or accellerate the larger star's demise?
The detection appears to be statistically very marginal, 1.5sigma, and the image contains a very similar bright spot on the opposite side of the star (which, for some reason, does not warrant a detection claim).
Wow, so it's currently shining purely from gravitational energy release, not nuclear reactions. I hadn't realized that it was possible or that we'd be able to see something of the sort.
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[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 25.2 ms ] thread>Gemini North telescope in Hawai‘i reveals never-before-seen companion to Betelgeuse, solving millennia-old mystery
edit: apparently, yep, that's why.
The detection appears to be statistically very marginal, 1.5sigma, and the image contains a very similar bright spot on the opposite side of the star (which, for some reason, does not warrant a detection claim).