Betelgeuse's Secret Twin Emerges: Betelgeuse B Unveiled as a Companion
A sharp image from ESO's Very Large Telescope reveals a faint companion near Betelgeuse, named Betelgeuse B: a young, hot star about 2.6–3.1 solar masses orbiting the red supergiant at roughly the Saturn–Sun distance. The finding, supported by two independent image-processing methods and strong statistical significance, suggests Betelgeuse is a binary/multiple system; although orbital motion still needs to be observed to confirm binding, the result has important implications for how massive stars form and how their winds and mass loss operate.