ALMA Reveals Long-Lived Hotspots on Betelgeuse's Bubbling Surface

Using ALMA, astronomers captured unprecedented high-resolution images of Betelgeuse's surface, revealing bright hotspots and an irregular, bubbling atmosphere shaped by enormous convective motions within the red supergiant. Surprisingly, a prominent hotspot observed in 2023 appeared in nearly the same location as one detected in 2015, suggesting these features persist for at least seven years—much longer than current models predict for such structures. The observations provide rare insight into the atmosphere of one of the closest red supergiants, located 600 light-years away, as it approaches the final stages of its evolution before eventually exploding as a supernova.