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After the Great Dimming four years ago, scientists have detected a sudden sharp increase in luminosity being emitted by the red giant Betelgeuse, with the star siting at 142% of its normal brightness level.
Observations of Betelgeuse over the last 200 years have proved that the star has been periodically changing brightness, with astronomers making note of two distinct brightness cycles, the longest of which lasted over a 5.9-year cycle and a 400-day cycle.
Betelgeuse, the largest red giant star of this type known to us, was usually the 10th brightest star in the sky. This year, however, Betelgeuse became the 7th brightest star. In April, officials detected a peak brightness reading at 156%.
"One of the coolest things about Betelgeuse is that we’re watching the final stages of big star evolution play out almost in real time for us, which we’ve never really been able to study in this much depth before," Sara Webb, an astrophysicist at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, said.
Officials have underscored that Betelgeuse is hardly on the cusp of turning into a supernova, with the red giant's brightness likely to return to normal by the end of the decade. In fact, officials believe the aftereffects of the Great Dimming were so profound that it's what's likely causing the star to temporarily experience a spike in cosmic brilliance.
However, officials have underscored that a supernova of Betelgeuse may be tens or even hundreds of thousands of years away.
The preprint of the article's findings can be accessed through arXiv service.