Occultation of Betelgeuse by the asteroid Leona, Dec 12 2023, Alicante (Spain)

Last night, the asteroid Leona passed in front of the red supergiant Betelgeuse, one of the brightest stars of the famous constellation Orion, but this was only visible from a very narrow corridor covering Asia, Europe and America. Such event is extremely rare for such a bright star: once in an astronomer lifetime! Despite high clouds covering southern Spain, I clearly saw Betelgeuse darkening for about ten seconds from the Alicante area. Betelgeuse is much larger than the Sun: placed at the center of the solar system, it would engulf the orbits of Mercury, Venus and Mars. Within 100,000 years (a very short time on the scale of the life of stars), it could explode in a supernova. Since Leona was not large enough to hide it completely, the occultation occurred as an annular eclipse and this is the reason why Betelgeuse did not disappear but only darkened. Thierry Legault -