The Atmosphere of Betelgeuse

esahubble_opo9604b August 10th, 2020

Credit: Andrea Dupree (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), Ronald Gilliland (STScI), NASA and ESA

This is the first direct image of a star other than the Sun, made with the Hubble Space Telescope. Called Alpha Orionis, or Betelgeuse, it is a red supergiant star marking the shoulder of the winter constellation Orion the Hunter. The Hubble image reveals a huge ultraviolet atmosphere with a mysterious hot spot on the stellar behemoth's surface. The enormous bright spot, which is many hundreds times the diameter of Sun, is at least 2, 000 Kelvin degrees hotter than the surface of the star.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://esahubble.org/images/opo9604b/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Baltimore, MD, United States

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Image Details

Image Type: Observation
Object Name: Betelgeuse
Subject - Milky Way: Star > Evolutionary Stage > Red Supergiant

Position Details

Position (ICRS): RA = 5h 55m 10.4s; DEC = 7° 24’ 23.7”
Orientation: North is up
Field of View: 0.0 x 0.0 arcminutes
Constellation: Orion

Color Mapping

	Telescope	Spectral Band	Wavelength
	Hubble (FOC)	Optical (None)	-

ID: opo9604b
Subject Category: B.3.1.5
Subject Name: Betelgeuse
Credits: Andrea Dupree (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), Ronald Gilliland (STScI), NASA and ESA

Release Date: 2020-08-10T12:45:25
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url: https://esahubble.org/images/opo9604b/

Type: Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes

Facility: Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument: FOC
Color Assignment: Orange

Band: Optical
Bandpass: None
Central Wavelength

Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID: None
Notes

Coordinate Frame: ICRS
Equinox: J2000
Reference Value: 88.7934041966, 7.40659216049
Reference Dimension: 100.0, 100.0

Reference Pixel: 50.0, 50.0
Scale: -9.39273891548e-07, 9.39273891548e-07
Rotation: -0
Coordinate System Projection:: TAN

Quality: Full
FITS Header
Notes

Creator (Curator): ESA/Hubble
URL: https://esahubble.org
Name
Email

Telephone
Address: ESA Office, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Dr
City: Baltimore
State/Province: MD

Postal Code: 21218
Country: United States
Rights: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Publisher: ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID: esahubble
Resource ID: opo9604b

Resource URL: http://esahubble.org/media/archives/images/original/opo9604b.tif
Related Resources

Metadata Date: 2003-12-09T17:45:55+01:00
Metadata Version: 1.1

Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

There is no distance meta data in this image.