Betelgeuse is bouncing back from bizarre dimming episode - Space.com

In early 2019, however, the massive star underwent a puzzling dimming event that was visible even to backyard observers.

Scientists analyzing data from the Hubble Space Telescope and several other observatories now think Betelgeuse literally blew its top in 2019, and that the event is still affecting the star's behavior.

The star's photosphere — the lowest section of a star's atmosphere and the layer visible to us — is rebuilding itself, according to observations.

The Betelgeuse explosion may have been caused by a convective plume, more than a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) across, bubbling up from deep inside the star.

— Mysterious dimming of bright star Betelgeuse may be from 'sunspots' and temperature changes4

Dust cloud caused Betelgeuse star's weird dimming, study finds .

The SME was an event on scale never before seen by astronomers, suggesting SMEs and CMEs are different types of events.

Despite the excitement Betelgeuse stirred in 2019, the event is not seen as evidence that the star will go supernova anytime soon!

To follow up, NASA's new James Webb Space Telescope could be used to detect infrared light from the ejected material as it moves away from Betelgeuse.

He began writing for Space.com in 2019 and writes for SpaceNews, IEEE Spectrum, National Geographic, Sky & Telescope, New Scientist and others. Andrew first caught the space bug when, as a youngster, he saw Voyager images of other worlds in our solar system for the first time. Away from space, Andrew enjoys trail running in the forests of Finland. You can follow him on Twitter @AJ_FI (opens in new tab).