"Unraveling the Mystery of Betelgeuse's Boiling Surface"

Recent observations of Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star, suggest it is spinning much faster than expected, but a new study proposes that the star's violently boiling surface may be creating an illusion of rapid rotation. The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics team suggests that the bubbling surface could be mistaken for rotation, leading to the belief that Betelgeuse is rotating faster than possible for a star of its size. The team's research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, aims to better understand how the star's boiling surface affects measurements and will use further observations to assess its rotational speed.