After centuries of study, Betelgeuse is revealed to be two stars

>At long last, astronomers have firm evidence that Betelgeuse, one of the most famous stars in the night sky, is not alone. Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT), a team led by French researcher Miguel Montargès obtained the clearest image yet of what is likely Betelgeuse B, the star orbiting Betelgeuse. "This is the conclusion of a century-long quest," Montargès says.

CliftonRubberpants | 2 hours ago

Thank you.

: wildweeds | 38 minutes ago
generally you can use archive.ph and similar websites to get around paywalls these days, for anyone who wasn't aware.

Nat20Twenty | 3 hours ago

I love the acronym VLT.....so.......unoriginal.

ecafsub | 3 hours ago

That’s not an acronym. It’s an initialism, like CPU.

alexandurp | 3 hours ago

What you don't pronounce it See-Poo? /s

: SweetNeo85 | 2 hours ago
ka-PUH
: curious_astronauts | 2 hours ago
I call it See poo.

hemareddit | 2 hours ago

For those wondering the difference, NASA is an acronym, since you say it as a word, not letter by letter.

vorblesnork | 2 hours ago

Just wait til you hear about the Extremely Large Telescope and the (unfortunately cancelled) Overwhelmingly Large Telescope!

02meepmeep | 3 hours ago

So does this mean it’s not going supernova sometime soon?

: LT48 | 3 hours ago
That type of star has a short lifespan and will definitely go supernova relatively soon but on a cosmic timescale, not a human one.
: WrongEinstein | 20 minutes ago
Asking the important questions here.

Useful_Calendar_6274 | 3 hours ago

Hope it doesn't have a single planet with weird aliens on it

scixlovesu | 3 hours ago

I swear this was something I already knew from somewhere?

Maybe I'm thinking of something else

: WmNeo | 2 hours ago
I think this hypothesis was put forward after the strange dimming and glowing seen last couple of years. This might be confirming a hypothesis we heard about at least 2 years ago.

Ray1987 | 3 hours ago

So does this mean it's more likely to explode or less likely to explode in my lifetime?

PrecedentialAssassin | 2 hours ago

If you're going to live to be 100,000 you have a decent chance of seeing it

: Ray1987 | an hour ago
So there's still hope!

Shutdown_service | 2 hours ago

Some of the flickering from Betelgeuse that was mistaken for a «any day now» sign was probably the star. So in short term it lessens it.

Crayon_Casserole | 2 hours ago

Betelgoosed.

Alklazaris | an hour ago

How the hell after all this time we just found this out? I know it's bright but wouldn't a radio signal produce two waveforms?

neodmaster | 59 minutes ago

Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!!

H_Katzenberg | 59 minutes ago

Beteldeux

cadmious | 45 minutes ago

Thank goodness it isn't 3 stars or we would be in trouble

megaapfel | 3 hours ago

Pretty embarrassing that this took so long.

: yoweigh | 2 hours ago
You should be embarrassed! Astronomers could have found this way earlier if only you'd built a better telescope for them, you lazy bum.
: quad_damage_orbb | 3 hours ago
I thought that this was already known? Was it just speculated but not confirmed and this is the confirmation?
: LongLiveStaceyKing | 3 hours ago
>***"Honestly, I thought we did not have the sensitivity to detect Betelgeuse B*** as it was predicted," Montargès explains. "Because it is more massive than predicted, we see it!" Originally thought to be about as massive as the sun, the new observations reveal that Betelgeuse B has around two to three times the mass of the sun.

>"The fact that we can still discover a nearby companion, more massive and brighter than the sun, around such a well-studied star is remarkable," Montargès says. "These are among the best moments in science: seeing something new, unexpected."