A bright reddish star in the constellation Orion, one of the largest known stars in our galaxy.
From Arabic 'Yad al-Jauza' meaning 'hand of Orion,' corrupted through medieval Latin and French sources into the current form. The name reflects how Arabic astronomers identified and named stars during the Islamic Golden Age.
Betelgeuse is so enormous that if it replaced our Sun, its surface would extend past Jupiter's orbit—and it's slowly dying, which means it could explode as a supernova any time in the next 100,000 years, creating one of the brightest events visible from Earth.
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