IT TAKES TWO

Oct 14, 2025

The red supergiant Betelgeuse has long puzzled astronomers with its strange fluctuations in brightness — was it about to explode, or hiding a secret companion? NASA scientists have now confirmed the latter, photographing a second star nestled within Betelgeuse’s outer atmosphere. Using the Alopeke speckle instrument on the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, they combined thousands of ultra-short exposures to reveal the hidden partner.

The companion orbits Betelgeuse every six years and likely causes its flickering brightness — though in about 10,000 years, Betelgeuse will probably consume it.

NASA has the full story here, and astrophysicist YouTuber Space Mog breaks it down in this video.