Why is Betelgeuse dimmer than our Sun when we look up at the night sky?
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Why is Betelgeuse dimmer than our Sun when we look up at the night sky?
Observations of Betelgeuse from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) during the dimming period show that the dimming wasn’t due to a drop in surface temperature. Instead, it dimmed because a veil of dust obscured the star, blocking some of its light. The dust came from the star itself.
How many times brighter is Betelgeuse than the sun?
∴ Betelgeuse is about 9,500 × more luminous than our Sun.
How long does it take light to travel from Betelgeuse to Earth?
Not far from Sirius in the sky is the bright star Betelgeuse (pronounced Beetle’ juice). It is so far that its light takes 430 years to reach us.
Which is brighter Aldebaran or Betelgeuse?
As recently as October, Betelgeuse glowed around magnitude 0.5, considerably brighter than its nearby Aldebaran (0.9).
Is Betelgeuse bigger than the sun?
Betelgeuse imaged in ultraviolet light by the Hubble Space Telescope. Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star roughly 950 times as large as the Sun, is one of the largest stars known. For comparison, the diameter of Mars’s orbit around the Sun is 328 times the Sun’s diameter.
How is Betelgeuse brighter than the Sun?
Betelgeuse is one of the largest known stars and is probably at least the size of the orbits of Mars or Jupiter around the sun. That’s a diameter about 700 times the size of the Sun or 600 million miles….Betelgeuse.
| Fact Table | |
|---|---|
| Name | Betelgeuse |
| Brightness | 7,500 times greater than the Sun |
| Surface Temperature | 6000 F |
| Color | Orange-red |
Why does the Sun seem brighter than Betelgeuse?
Betelgeuse is actually cooler than our sun. The sun’s surface temperature is about 5,800° Kelvin (about 10,000° Fahrenheit), and Betelgeuse is roughly half that, about 3,000° Kelvin (about 5,000° Fahrenheit). Also it is about 10,000 times brighter than our sun (because a larger star is brighter).
How many times brighter is Betelgeuse than Aldebaran?
Is Arcturus bigger than Betelgeuse?
Antares has a diameter of ≈ 700 times that of the Sun, or about 1 billion kilometers. Betelgeuse has a diameter ≈ 1300 times that of the Sun. Arcturus is 20 times bigger than the sun.