“I jumped from my chair” – Astronomers spot Betelgeuse’s hidden companion

French astronomer Miguel Montargès and colleagues used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope to capture the clearest image yet of Betelgeuse B, a stellar companion orbiting the famous red supergiant Betelgeuse in the Orion constellation. The discovery, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, concludes a century-long search; the companion is more massive than predicted, with two to three times the Sun's mass. The team used the SPHERE instrument to directly image the companion in December 2024, when orbital predictions placed it at maximum separation from Betelgeuse, and plans a follow-up observation to confirm the detection.