Depth 31 · Red supergiant

Betelgeuse

Betelgeuse is a huge, cool red supergiant marking a shoulder of Orion and the closest star of its kind to Earth. It is near the end of its short life and will someday explode as a supernova, and in recent years it surprised astronomers with a dramatic dimming and the probable detection of a close companion star.

Fact sheet

Type: Red supergiant (semiregular variable star)
Distance: Roughly 550 light-years from the Sun (estimates range from about 500 to 720)
Size: Roughly 700 to 760 times the Sun's radius and about 15 to 19 times its mass
Constellation: Orion
Position in the sky: Right ascension 5h 55m, declination +7° 25′
Seeing it from Earth: Easy to see with the naked eye from almost everywhere as the orange-red star at Orion's shoulder, best in the evening sky from about December to March (northern winter, southern summer).
On the voyage: Depth 31, in the Milky Way section of the route, between the Pleiades and the Orion Nebula

Things to know

If Betelgeuse took the Sun's place, its surface would reach beyond the orbit of Jupiter. NASA
Starting in late 2019, Betelgeuse lost about 60% of its brightness within a few months, then recovered by April 2020, an episode called the Great Dimming. NASA
Hubble and other observatories traced the dimming to a huge eruption from the star's surface that cooled into a light-blocking dust cloud with several times the mass of our Moon. NASA
In 2025 astronomers using the 'Alopeke camera on Gemini North reported a probable faint companion star of about 1.5 solar masses orbiting only about four Earth-Sun distances from Betelgeuse's surface; it has been nicknamed Siwarha and should be easiest to check again in November 2027. NOIRLab
Although it is only about 10 million years old, Betelgeuse is expected to explode as a supernova in about 100,000 years, leaving a neutron star or black hole. NASA

Sources

Reach depth 31 on a voyage to fly past Betelgeuse yourself. Every right answer warps your ship one stop deeper.

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