APOD: The Fainting of Betelgeuse (2020 Jan 02)

[Ann]

I just struck me... the name Betelgeuse. The name itself tells us that Betelgeuse must be the Beta star of Orion, doesn't' it?

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

I just struck me... the name Betelgeuse. The name itself tells us that Betelgeuse must be the Beta star of Orion, doesn't' it?

Well, it doesn't mean that. But it's a nice mnemonic.

[neufer]

I just struck me... the name Betelgeuse. The name itself tells us that Betelgeuse must be the Beta star of Orion, doesn't' it?

Well, it doesn't mean that. But it's a nice mnemonic.

<<α Orionis (Latinised to Alpha Orionis) is the star's designation given by Johann Bayer in 1603. The traditional name Betelgeuse is derived from the Arabic إبط الجوزاء Ibṭ al-Jauzā’, meaning "the armpit of Orion.". The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN, which included Betelgeuse for this star. It is now so entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names.

In the popular science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Ford Prefect was from "a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse." Humbert Wolfe wrote a poem about Betelgeuse, which was set to music by Gustav Holst.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

• On Betelgeuse
  the gold leaves hang in golden aisles
  for twice a hundred million miles,
  and twice a hundred million years
  they golden hang and nothing stirs,
  on Betelgeuse.
  
  Space is a wind that does
  not blow on Betelgeuse,
  and time - oh time - is a bird,
  whose wings have never stirred
  the golden avenues of leaves
  on Betelgeuse.
  
  On Betelgeuse
  there is nothing that joys or grieves
  the unstirred multitude of leaves,
  nor ghost of evil or good haunts
  the gold multitude
  on Betelgeuse.
  
  And birth they do not use
  nor death on Betelgeuse,
  and the God, of whom we are
  infinite dust, is there
  a single leaf of those
  gold leaves on Betelgeuse.>>>>