Betelgeuse

Betelgeuse is the bright star representing the constellation Orion's right shoulder, assuming Orion pictures a man who is facing us. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant with spectral type M2Iab and is among the larger and more luminous stars known. Characteristics:

• Orion - constellation.
• 05h55m10.30536s - right ascension.
• +07deg24m25.4304s - declination.
• +0.50 - apparent magnitude.
• 168 pc - distance.
• M1-M2 Ia-ab - spectral type.
• 14-19 - mass(solar).
• 87100 - luminosity(solar).
• 764 - radius(solar).
• +1.85 - B-V color index.

Betelgeuse is near the end of the short lifetime of a massive star and has been thought likely to supernova within the next 100,000 years. Astronomers occasionally casually/humorously refer to the possibility that it will supernova any time now, but its state of evolution is not so precisely known as to make that likely (though a 2023 claim is that modelling suggests it is in a very late stage of stellar evolution, i.e., carbon burning, suggesting it could happen this century). It generally shows somewhat periodic variation (on the order of a magnitude) but a longer and deeper reduction in brightness from November 2019 to March 2020 (the Great Dimming) produced speculation regarding its current state.