Why in news?
• Using the European Space Organisation’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have noticed the unprecedented dimming of Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star (over 20 times bigger than the Sun) in the constellation Orion.
Key highlights:
• Betelgeuse was born as a super massive star millions of years ago and has been “dramatically” and “mysteriously” dimming for the last six months.
• According to a report among the brightest night time stars, Betelgeuse ranks 10th, but by the last week of December 2019, its
brightness had dimmed so low, that the star was ranked as the 21st brightest, “a remarkable decline — and a historic low.
• The report suggests that while Betelgeuse’s behaviour is out of the ordinary, it doesn’t mean that an eruption is imminent since astronomers predict the star to blast sometime (supernova explosion, which is the largest explosion to take place in space) in the next 100,000 years or so.