Astronomers crack 1,000-year-old Betelgeuse mystery with 1st-ever sighting of secret companion

This dim blue smudge next to the bright orange of Betelgeuse is the iconic star’s stellar companion. Betelgeuse’s brightness varies roughly every six years, leading astronomers to guess that it was being blocked by a dimmer partner in an incredibly tight orbit. But “papers that predicted Betelgeuse’s companion believed that no one would likely ever be able to image it”, says space scientist Steve Howell. Now the smaller star has been detected for the first time using ‘speckle imaging’ by the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, which uses short exposure times to remove the distortions in images caused by Earth’s atmosphere.