A 22 June 2020 feature piece by Susanna Kohler at the American
Astronomical Society speculates on whether Betelegeuse may have been
created by merger of a binary star within the past few hundred thousand
years.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Susanna Kohler, American Astronomical Society
Betelgeuse — a prominent star in our night sky — has recently made headlines due to its unexpected, sudden dimming and rebrightening. But the supergiant has other quirks, like how it’s hurtling rapidly through space as a “runaway” star, or how it spins unusually fast for its size. A team of Louisiana State University researchers led by Manos Chatzopoulos has now performed simulations that show that Betelgeuse’s odd properties could be explained if the supergiant was formed by the merger of an unequal-mass binary star system in the relatively recent past.
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Article with images from Chatzopoulos paper here :-
https://aasnova.org/2020/06/22/featu...tellar-merger/