Starting in late 2019, Betelgeuse began drawing a lot of attention after it mysteriously started dimming, only to brighten again a few months later. For a variable star like Betelgeuse, periodic dimming and brightening are normal, but the extent of its fluctuation led to all sorts of theories as to what might be causing it. Similar to Tabby’s Star in 2015, astronomers offered up the usual suspects (minus the alien megastructure theory!)
Whereas some thought that the dimming was a prelude to the star becoming a Type II supernova, others suggested that dust clouds, enormous sunspots, or ejected clouds of gas were the culprit. In any case, the “Great Dimming of Betelgeuse” has motivated an international team of astronomers to propose that a “Betelgeuse Scope” be created that cant monitor the star constantly.
The paper that outlines their proposal was recently presented at the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Optical Engineering + Applications 2020, a virtual conference that took place from Aug. 24th to Sept. 4th. The paper, “Betelgeuse scope: single-mode-fibers-assisted optical interferometer design for dedicated stellar activity monitoring,” is also available online as part of the Proceedings of SPIE, Vol. 11490.
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