Unveiling Betelgeuse's Mysterious "Great Dimming" with 15 Years of Data

A team of astronomers has used 15 years of data from the STELLA robotic telescope to study the "Great Dimming" event of Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star. The data revealed five distinct layers of the star's photosphere and showed that the variations in the innermost layer were in line with the star's brightness variations. The analysis also identified two powerful shockwaves in the photosphere, which caused an outflow of material and subsequent infall across the layers. The star returned to its normal state in early 2022.