Just 2,000 Years Ago, Betelgeuse Was Yellow, Not Red - by spacewriter
According to astronomer Ralph Neuhäuser at the University of Jena in Germany, the rapid color shift is really about evolution. “The very fact that it changed in color within two millennia from yellow-orange to red tells us, together with theoretical calculations, that it has 14 times the mass of our Sun – and the mass is the main parameter defining the evolution of stars,” he said. “Betelgeuse is now 14 million years old and in its late evolutionary phases. In about 1.
Neuhäuser and colleagues studied the historical records for star observations of a number of stars. They reported their conclusions in a paper published in MNRAS. For Betelgeuse, they wrote, “The color change of Betelgeuse is a new, tight constraint for single-star theoretical evolutionary models . It is most likely located less than one millennium past the bottom of the red giant branch, before which rapid color evolution is expected.
As it aged, Betelgeuse experienced mass loss, and it began to cool. It only took a couple of thousand years for it to change color. That means this evolution was fairly quick. Usually, they evolve from blue-white dwarfs to red supergiants over the course of a few millennia. Betelgeuse did it in two, which indicates its mass, and from that, the scientists at Jena could figure out its age.
The observable properties of Betelgeuse and other stars whose colors have been noted throughout history could provide further insight into the physics at work as these stars evolve. Of course, astronomers will need to calibrate the historical observations carefully with present-day data. But, this information should help pinpoint stellar masses with even higher precision. As the authors state in their paper’s conclusions, “This could provide further insight into the physics of stellar interiors and late evolution of supergiants . The historical color evolution is a new tight constraint on either the single-star evolutionary models or the Betelgeuse merger models.”
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