MYSTERY WIRE — Betelgeuse, a star that has been in the news lately as astronomers watch it continue to dim, may be at “minimum brightness” in its current cycle.
“The star has been nearly steady in brightness now over the last 10 days,” Villanova University astronomer Edward Guinan told Forbes.com.
In a report posted online Monday, Guinan said, “In December the star kept getting fainter than we have ever observed in our 25 years of continuous photometry.” See facts about Betelgeuse.
And the “imminent supernova” predicted by many man not happen anytime soon, he said.
READ: Betelgeuse has finally stopped dimming, says astronomer
Reports a month ago suggested the star was about to go supernova, but astronomers are now saying that won’t likely happen anytime soon.
The changes in the star have made for an interesting change in the night sky, as it has dropped to 36% of its normal brightness. It is no longer the “alpha star” in the constellation Orion.
The enormous star — a red supergiant star that was the ninth brightest object in the night sky before all of this — is about 640 light years away from Earth.
