Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star in the constellation Orion, located 427 light-years away. It is one of the largest known stars with a radius 630 times that of the Sun. Betelgeuse gets most of its energy by fusing helium into carbon. It is part of the Winter Triangle asterism and has an unusual name due to translation confusions between Arabic and Latin.
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star located 427 light-years away in the constellation Orion. Betelgeuse, as the ninth brightest star in the night sky, is Orion’s “shoulder”. It is not found far in the night sky from Sirius, the brightest star. With a radius 630 times that of the Sun, Betelgeuse would stretch between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter if it were placed at the center of the solar system. Betelgeuse is one of the largest known stars.
As a red supergiant, Betelgeuse has consumed most of the hydrogen in its core, having already fused it into helium. Therefore, it gets most of its energy by fusing helium into carbon through the triple alpha process. Like other red supergiants, Betelgeuse is large in diameter – most red supergiants are between 200 and 800 solar diameters in size, although some go as large as 1500 – and instead of having a distinct photosphere, it is lost in space. It is red due to its relatively low surface temperature, only 3,500 K.
Betelgeuse was noticed by astronomers as early as the 1st century BC, when Chinese astronomers left notes about the star’s color and brightness. It is part of the Winter Triangle asterism, which includes Sirius, Procyon and Betelgeuse – three of the ten brightest objects in the sky – as its vertices.
Betelgeuse has a very unusual name which is partly due to translation confusions between Arabic and Latin. The star was originally called yad al-jawzā, or “hand of the central one” in Arabic. A confusion of the first letter led to its translation into Latin as Bedalgeuze. Then, in an attempt to make it match what was thought to be the original intention, the original was thought to actually be “the armpit of the central one”, pronounced in Arabic Bait al-Jauza, which led to the modern spelling as “Betelgeuse”. So the modern word was created only after several mistakes and confusing translations.
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