Deadly giant stars swallow their companions

The star Betelgeuse 10 million years old with a diameter of more than 1.3 billion kilometers may have swallowed a companion mass with the mass of the Sun.

The University of Texas research team concluded that giant star Betelgeuse , located 640 light-years from the Sun, may have swallowed a companion object in a study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal magazine. Astronomical Society on December 19.

The star Betelgeuse may have swallowed up its celestial body.(Photo: Fox News).

Betelgeuse is a 10 million year old red star with a diameter of over 1.3 billion km and a mass of 15-25 times the Sun. Like other super-massive stars, it has a very short life cycle and will soon be destroyed in a supernova explosion. Smaller stars like the Sun can last up to 10 billion years.

Such large stars often turn slowly because the rotation speed decreases as the size increases. However, Betelgeuse is spinning at a speed of more than 53,000 km / h, 150 times faster than the speed of similar giant stars.

Through computer simulations, the team thought that this could happen when Betelgeuse swallowed a companion star whose mass was almost the same as the Sun 100,000 years ago.

This "carnivorous" action caused Betelgeuse to blow up a physical cloud into space at a speed of about 36,000km / h. Astronomers have discovered a layer of material at the predicted location on the simulation.

"In addition, evidence of the shaking of Betelgeuse during this period has also been recorded," said J. Pulig Wheeler, the lead author of the study.