Next week, regions of the world will witness a unique eclipse, as an asteroid will pass in front of a bright star to produce this astronomical phenomenon that millions can see.
Betelgeuse, or the “Hand of Gemini” star, is the closest giant red star to Earth and its brightest star in the night sky. It disappears as an asteroid passes in front of it for a few moments, producing a unique eclipse of its kind.
This scene is supposed to appear late Monday until early Tuesday, to be witnessed by millions along a narrow path extending from Tajikistan and Armenia in Central Asia, through Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Spain, to Miami and the Florida Keys archipelago, and finally, some areas of Mexico.
The asteroid that will pass in front of it is "Leona", which is a rectangular space rock that rotates slowly in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Astronomers hope to learn more about the “Hand of Gemini” and “Leona” during the eclipse, which is expected to last more than 15 seconds.
A Spanish-led team was recently able, by observing the eclipse of a star dimmer than Leona in September, to estimate the dimensions of the asteroid. It reached 55 kilometers in width and 80 kilometers in length, but doubts still remain about those expectations, in addition to the size of the star and its expanding atmosphere.
It is unclear whether the asteroid will obscure the entire star, causing a total eclipse, but it may create a "ring of fire" with small flaming boundaries around the star.
If the eclipse is total, astronomers cannot be certain how many seconds it will take for the star to disappear completely, which may be up to ten seconds.
Betelgeuse, which is about seven hundred light-years away from Earth, can be seen with the naked eye, but using a telescope or telescope will undoubtedly enhance the view (a light-year is equivalent to 9,461 trillion kilometers).
Betelgeuse is thousands of times brighter than our sun and about seven hundred times larger, and if it replaces our sun, it will extend beyond Jupiter, according to the US space agency NASA. However, its age, which does not exceed ten million years, is not comparable to the sun, which is more than ten million years old. It is 4.6 billion years old.
Scientists expect that Betelgeuse will turn into a nova - a nova is a sudden explosion in space that results in the brightness of intense light, as a result of which a new star is formed - the largest in a violent explosion in a hundred thousand years.