The curious case of Betelgeuse
Jacco Th. van Loon

TL;DR
Betelgeuse exhibits several unusual features that raise questions about its typicality among red supergiants, impacting our understanding of stellar evolution and rare astronomical phenomena.
Contribution
This paper investigates whether Betelgeuse's peculiar features are atypical, informing whether it can serve as a prototype for red supergiants or related stellar phenomena.
Findings
Betelgeuse's features are partly atypical compared to standard red supergiants.
Understanding Betelgeuse's peculiarities can shed light on supernova 1987A.
The study highlights the importance of rarity in astrophysical interpretations.
Abstract
Betelgeuse is the nearest red supergiant, one of the brightest stars in our sky, and statistically speaking it would be expected to be "typical". Yet it exhibits many features that seem "curious", to say the least. For instance it has a high proper motion. It rotates fast. It has little dust. It dimmed unexpectedly. Is any of these, and other, phenomena atypical, and taken together does it make Betelgeuse atypical? This is important to know, because we need to know whether Betelgeuse might be a prototype of red supergiants in general, or certain subclasses of red supergiants, since we can study it in such great detail. It is also important to know as it may be a link to understanding other, apparently atypical cases such as supernova 1987A, and maybe even such exotica as Thorne-\.Zytkov objects. Studying this question in itself helps us understand how we deal with rarity and coincidence…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsStellar, planetary, and galactic studies · Astronomy and Astrophysical Research · Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae
