Computer simulation of the star Betelgeuse showing its boiling surface.

In our new paper PhD student Jing-Ze Ma (马竟泽) questions the claim that the Red Supergiant star Betelgeuse is rapidly rotating. Instead, we propose that we may be seeing the motions of very large-scale hot bubbles that rise and fall. The video below visualizes our computer simulations and explains how the boiling convective motions may explain the ALMA observations of this star..

Computer simulations of a Red supergiant star like Betelgeuse as the radio telescope ALMA would see it.


The paper has just been published in ApJ Letters with co-authors Ma, Jing-Ze, Chiavassa, Andrea, de Mink, Selma E., Valli, Ruggero, Justham, Stephen and Freytag, Bernd. 

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