There is a slight and gradual improvement in the latest medical bulletin of the star Betelgeuse, observed special after that in the last four months it has mysteriously turned pale, suggesting that its explosive end was near: the latest observations, published on the 'astronomerstelegram' platform by US researchers of Villanova University, in fact indicate that its brightness would have reached a minimum between 7 and 13 February, and that it would now be recovering.
The red supergiant star, located about 700 light years in the constellation of Orion, is usually one of the ten brightest stars in the night sky. Last October it began to show an abnormal drop in brightness, so much so that astronomers had launched the alert in December.
The mysterious phenomenon continued in the following weeks until mid-February, when the drop in brightness marked a worrying -65%, going well beyond the cyclical variability to which the star had accustomed us. Many thought it was about to end its life cycle, ready to explode as a supernova by scattering the 'seeds' of new stars into space.
Apparently, however, the 'fireworks' will wait a little longer, even if nobody knows how long. Betelgeuse is in fact strangely long-lived, with an age between 8 and 8.5 million years. Astronomers will continue to target it in the coming weeks to investigate the cause of the unusual drop in brightness (perhaps due to the expulsion of dust or the cooling of the star's surface) and above all to predict its fate.
