Strange ‘dimming' behaviour of red supergiant Betelgeuse reveals second companion star
'Betelgeuse … this is a star in the constellation Orion,' Mr Tucker told Sky News Australia.
'It dims, as you said, and really changes its brightness quite often, and as you're seeing on your screen now … there's actually a second star.
'It's actually explained a lot of the strange behaviour of this star and hopefully will aid in our understanding of exactly why it goes through these dimming processes.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
7NEWS
6 days ago
- 7NEWS
UFO mystery: Glowing orbs over Queensland and NSW explained
Some mysterious and oddly shaped orbs in the sky have left Australians wondering if they had spotted a UFO. Three glowing white shapes were seen pulsating and expanding above the east coast around midnight on Wednesday. WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: East Coast UFO sighting. Residents from Queensland to northern NSW posted videos of the eerie sight on social media, with many speculating they had just caught a glimpse of something not of this world. 'Maybe three UFOs or a big star ship,' a Gold Coast witness told 7NEWS. 'The one my brother witnessed ... woke him up because it was so bright,' said another viewer. 'I think it might be something terrestrial from outer space,' one person guessed. 'Probably asteroids,' another suggested. 'It's a UFO. It has to be,' another viewer insisted. While the glowing orbs sparked talk of extraterrestrial visitors, Australian National University astrophysicist and cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker offered a more down-to-earth explanation. He told The Morning Show the mysterious sight was actually a rocket plume — the exhaust released when parts of a rocket separate during launch. But the plume did not come from the first-ever Australian-made rocket that crashed 14 seconds after launching on Wednesday. 'This was from a Chinese launch, a Chinese Long March 8A, launched about 6.15pm AEST. So, it really matches up with the program,' Tucker said. According to Chinese media, the rocket lifted off from the Hainan commercial spaceport at 5.49pm on Wednesday AEST, carrying the sixth batch of low-orbit internet satellites into their planned orbits. The launch was reported as a complete success. Tucker said the rocket was launched to the southeast, passing over the ocean just off the coast of Queensland. 'Rockets have multiple stages, and when those parts of the rocket separate, they have little thrusters and gas that separate them. And that's kind of the exhaust coming out,' he explained. 'So, you can kind of picture there are two sides in the photo you're seeing now. 'That's the gas coming out the side as the rocket separates.' The unusual shape of the orbs is not unheard of. 'Sometimes we call these 'space jellyfish', believe it or not, because of the weird shape and tentacles,' he said. Although the lights may have seemed close, Tucker said they were likely hundreds of kilometres offshore and dozens of kilometres in the atmosphere. 'If you think about the rocket launch as it goes up, it actually takes quite a while to actually enter space. 'And so it's traveling for hundreds, if not thousands of kilometers before those parts are separate. 'They're also designed that when they separate they separate over the ocean so that if obviously anything comes down it lands in the ocean.' Social media erupts with strange sky activity from NSW to QLD. As for why the orbs appeared to be floating in place, he said it was simply the lingering exhaust hanging high in the atmosphere. 'It's kind of like peeling out in a car — the dust plume just hangs in the air behind it,' he said. 'The same thing happens with a rocket. The strange sight, he added, will eventually fade. 'The gas stays where the separation happens, and over time it just fades off into the atmosphere.'
News.com.au
6 days ago
- News.com.au
‘Ingredients for life' found near star, fuelling alien hopes
The key ingredients for life may be scattered across the universe in more places than first thought, according to a new study. From prebiotic molecules in comets, to chemicals floating in the dust of interstellar space, scientists have traced the building blocks of life all across space. Astronomers have recently discovered the key components to life swirling around a remote baby star roughly 1,300 light-years from Earth. A protostar called V883 Orionis, tucked away in the constellation Orion, contains 17 complex organic molecules, including ethylene glycol and glycolonitrile. These are the precursors to components found in DNA and RNA - which build all living things. The study, published in the The Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggests the key components for life are far more common throughout the universe - offering a glimpse of hope for Earth's alien hunters. While similar compounds have been discovered elsewhere in the cosmos, astronomers assumed it wouldn't be possible so close to a star. The birth of stars is violent, emitting such a huge amount of energy that astronomers assumed these seeds of life would be obliterated. It was thought that only the rare planetary systems — like Earth — would be capable of reproducing them. 'Now it appears the opposite is true,' study co-author Kamber Schwarz, an astrochemist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, said in a statement. 'Our results suggest that protoplanetary discs inherit complex molecules from earlier stages, and the formation of complex molecules can continue during the protoplanetary disc stage.' Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile, scientists spotted emission lines from a cluster of organic molecules inside a debris and gas rich disk encircling V883 Orionis. This is in spite of the baby star pumping out powerful bursts of radiation. 'These outbursts are strong enough to heat the surrounding disc as far as otherwise icy environments, releasing the chemicals we have detected,' study first author Abubakar Fadul, a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, added. The organic compounds form on specks of ice in the debris and gas disk. Instead of destroying these precious organic compounds, the star may actually be freeing them from these icy surfaces. The researchers still need more data to see how well these compounds hold up as their host star grows. 'Perhaps we also need to look at other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum to find even more evolved molecules,' Fadul said. 'Who knows what else we might discover?'
Sky News AU
26-07-2025
- Sky News AU
Strange ‘dimming' behaviour of red supergiant Betelgeuse reveals second companion star
ANU Astrophysicist and Cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker discusses the star Betelgeuse, which has recently been undergoing 'dimming processes' as a result of the neighbouring influence of a companion star situated beside it. 'Betelgeuse … this is a star in the constellation Orion,' Mr Tucker told Sky News Australia. 'It dims, as you said, and really changes its brightness quite often, and as you're seeing on your screen now … there's actually a second star. 'It's actually explained a lot of the strange behaviour of this star and hopefully will aid in our understanding of exactly why it goes through these dimming processes.'
