Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Blue Dot 172: BETELGEUSE: Mystery Of A Dimming Supergiant

Sky And Telescope

Even casual observers of the night sky are familiar with the winter constellation Orion. It's two brightest stars, Rigel and Betelgeuse and its three belt stars make it an easy one to spot. But one of them has dimmed dramatically in recent months, the red supergiant star Betelgeuse. 

The dimming led to rampant speculation that the star, nearly 700 light-years from Earth, may be about to explode into the ultimate cosmic fireworks show -- a supernova that would be visible in the daytime sky. But is that what's really going on? Dave talks to Spitzer Space Telescope scientist Luisa Rebull about the giant star, the life cycles of stars in general and the ending of one of NASA's Great Observatories -- Spitzer.

 

Dave Schlom is the longtime host and creator of Blue Dot. From surfing to Voyager in interstellar space, rock guitar to orcas in our imperiled oceans, the topics on Blue Dot are as varied as the host’s interests and connections -- which are pretty limitless! An internationally respected space history journalist, Dave is also deeply fascinated by all aspects of the grand workings of nature’s awesome machinery on scales ranging from galactic to subatomic. And topics take in all aspects of the arts and sciences.
Matt Fidler is a producer and sound designer with over 15 years’ experience producing nationally distributed public radio programs. He has worked for shows such as Freakonomics Radio, Selected Shorts, Studio 360, The New Yorker Radio Hour and The Takeaway. In 2017, Matt launched the language podcast Very Bad Words, hitting the #28 spot in the iTunes podcast charts.