Dimming Betelgeuse Likely isn't Cold, Just Dusty

Interesting!

There is one nuance in the article that seems odd to me. If the brightness of Betelgeuse is still too high to get a useful spectrograph without attenuation, why didn't they use a smaller telescope than a 4.3 meter requiring scheduling. Heck, they probably could have made a global crowd source request to the amateur astronomers to provide data with their own spectroscopy equipment. Nothing reduces uncertainty like more data.

In my other Betelgeuse thread I posed that dust might be the culprit. I wonder how they differentiate interstellar dust from stellar dust?

In my other Betelgeuse thread I posed that dust might be the culprit. I wonder how they differentiate interstellar dust from stellar dust?

"The light from bright stars is often too strong for a detailed spectrum, but Massey employed a filter that effectively "dampened" the signal so they could mine the spectrum for a particular signature: the absorbance of light by molecules of titanium oxide.

Titanium oxide can form and accumulate in the upper layers of large, relatively cool stars like Betelgeuse, according to Levesque. It absorbs certain wavelengths of light, leaving telltale "scoops" in the spectrum of red supergiants that scientist can use to determine the star's surface temperature."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200306122454.htm

It's much more likely circumstellar, I believe. Titanium dioxide has been detected around other supergiant stars, e.g. Canis Majoris, the "Big Dog".

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130327143841.htm

Does this occluding dust discharge portend imminent doom? Does it tell us anything that might more accurately predict the collapse?

An added bit of information I found out about Betelgeuse is that most of its energy is now from fusion towards an iron core. This star has already exhausted the hydrogen fuel that makes helium. Some articles say helium fusion to oxygen and carbon process is the source of energy we see. Some articles say that oxygen and carbon are already fusing to the ultimate cold-core of iron. These latter articles naturally claim the supernova is coming sooner rather than later.

With Betelgeuse being a red supergiant star, it clearly is relatively cooler than many other stars. It's good to know this dimming is not from its cooling even further.

Betelgeuse just sneezed, quick where is the anti viral when you need it? How does one quarantine a red star when it is running a temperature above normal, send it back to China of course!