Red Supergiant Star Betelgeuse: First Direct Image of Another Star's Atmosphere

Red Supergiant Star Betelgeuse: First Direct Image of Another Star's Atmosphere

This is the first direct image of a star other than the Sun, made with the Hubble Space Telescope. Called Alpha Orionis, or Betelgeuse, it is a red supergiant star marking the shoulder of the winter constellation Orion the Hunter.

The Hubble image reveals a huge ultraviolet atmosphere with a mysterious hot spot on the stellar behemoth's surface. The enormous bright spot, which is many hundreds times the diameter of Sun, is at least 2,000 Kelvin degrees hotter than the surface of the star.

This is the first direct image of a star other than the Sun, made with the Hubble Space Telescope. Called Alpha Orionis, or Betelgeuse, it is a red supergiant star marking the shoulder of the winter constellation Orion the Hunter (diagram at right).

This image is a color composite made from exposures from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2). It shows the area around the red supergiant star Betelgeuse.

This is the first direct image of a star other than the Sun, made with the Hubble Space Telescope. Called Alpha Orionis, or Betelgeuse, it is a red supergiant star in the Milky Way galaxy marking the shoulder of the winter constellation Orion the Hunter. It is usually the tenth-brightest star in the night sky and, after Rigel, the second-brightest in its constellation. It is a distinctly reddish

Distance: 750 light years

The Hubble image also reveals a huge ultraviolet atmosphere with a mysterious hot spot on the stellar behemoth's surface. The enormous bright spot, which is many hundreds times the diameter of Sun, is at least 2,000 Kelvin degrees hotter than the surface of the star.

Image Credits: Andrea Dupree (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), Ronald Gilliland (STScI), NASA and European Space Agency/European Southern Observatory/Digitized Sky Survey 2 

Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin
Release Dates: Dec. 10, 1996 - Aug. 13, 2020

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