A dusty veil shading Betelgeuse during its Great Dimming.

Red supergiants are the most common final evolutionary stage of stars that have initial masses between 8 and 35 times that of the Sun1. During this stage, which lasts roughly 100,000 years1, red supergiants experience substantial mass loss. However, the mechanism for this mass loss is unknown2. Mass loss may affect the evolutionary path, collapse and future supernova light curve3 of a red supergiant, and its ultimate fate as either a neutron star or a black hole4. From November 2019 to March 2020, Betelgeuse-the second-closest red supergiant to Earth (roughly 220 parsecs, or 724 light years, away)5,6-experienced a historic dimming of its visible brightness. Usually having an apparent magnitude between 0.1 and 1.0, its visual brightness decreased to 1.614 ± 0.008 magnitudes around 7-13 February 20207-an event referred to as Betelgeuse's Great Dimming. Here we report high-angular-resolution observations showing that the southern hemisphere of Betelgeuse was ten times darker than usual in the visible spectrum during its Great Dimming. Observations and modelling support a scenario in which a dust clump formed recently in the vicinity of the star, owing to a local temperature decrease in a cool patch that appeared on the photosphere. The directly imaged brightness variations of Betelgeuse evolved on a timescale of weeks. Our findings suggest that a component of mass loss from red supergiants8 is inhomogeneous, linked to a very contrasted and rapidly changing photosphere.

(Sub)stellar companions shape the winds of evolved stars.

Binary interactions dominate the evolution of massive stars, but their role is less clear for low- and intermediate-mass stars. The evolution of a spherical wind from an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star into a nonspherical planetary nebula (PN) could be due to binary interactions. We observed a sample of AGB stars with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and found that their winds exhibit distinct nonspherical geometries with morphological similarities to planetary nebulae (PNe). We infer that the same physics shapes both AGB winds and PNe; additionally, the morphology and AGB mass-loss rate are correlated. These characteristics can be explained by binary interaction. We propose an evolutionary scenario for AGB morphologies that is consistent with observed phenomena in AGB stars and PNe.

An excess of massive stars in the local 30 Doradus starburst.

The 30 Doradus star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud is a nearby analog of large star-formation events in the distant universe. We determined the recent formation history and the initial mass function (IMF) of massive stars in 30 Doradus on the basis of spectroscopic observations of 247 stars more massive than 15 solar masses ([Formula: see text]). The main episode of massive star formation began about 8 million years (My) ago, and the star-formation rate seems to have declined in the last 1 My. The IMF is densely sampled up to 200 [Formula: see text] and contains 32 ± 12% more stars above 30 [Formula: see text] than predicted by a standard Salpeter IMF. In the mass range of 15 to 200 [Formula: see text], the IMF power-law exponent is [Formula: see text], shallower than the Salpeter value of 2.35.

Herschel/HIFI observations of the circumstellar ammonia lines in IRC+10216.

CONTEXT: A discrepancy exists between the abundance of ammonia (NH3) derived previously for the circumstellar envelope (CSE) of IRC+10216 from far-IR submillimeter rotational lines and that inferred from radio inversion or mid-infrared (MIR) absorption transitions. AIMS: To address the discrepancy described above, new high-resolution far-infrared (FIR) observations of both ortho- and para-NH3 transitions toward IRC+10216 were obtained with Herschel, with the goal of determining the ammonia abundance and constraining the distribution of NH3 in the envelope of IRC+10216. METHODS: We used the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI) on board Herschel to observe all rotational transitions up to the J = 3 level (three ortho- and six para-NH3 lines). We conducted non-LTE multilevel radiative transfer modelling, including the effects of near-infrared (NIR) radiative pumping through vibrational transitions. The computed emission line profiles are compared with the new HIFI data, the radio inversion transitions, and the MIR absorption lines in the ν2 band taken from the literature. RESULTS: We found that NIR pumping is of key importance for understanding the excitation of rotational levels of NH3. The derived NH3 abundances relative to molecular hydrogen were (2.8 ± 0.5) × 10-8 for ortho-NH3 and [Formula: see text] for para-NH3, consistent with an ortho/para ratio of 1. These values are in a rough agreement with abundances derived from the inversion transitions, as well as with the total abundance of NH3 inferred from the MIR absorption lines. To explain the observed rotational transitions, ammonia must be formed near to the central star at a radius close to the end of the wind acceleration region, but no larger than about 20 stellar radii (1σ confidence level).

Binary interaction dominates the evolution of massive stars.

The presence of a nearby companion alters the evolution of massive stars in binary systems, leading to phenomena such as stellar mergers, x-ray binaries, and gamma-ray bursts. Unambiguous constraints on the fraction of massive stars affected by binary interaction were lacking. We simultaneously measured all relevant binary characteristics in a sample of Galactic massive O stars and quantified the frequency and nature of binary interactions. More than 70% of all massive stars will exchange mass with a companion, leading to a binary merger in one-third of the cases. These numbers greatly exceed previous estimates and imply that binary interaction dominates the evolution of massive stars, with implications for populations of massive stars and their supernovae.

The building blocks of planets within the 'terrestrial' region of protoplanetary disks.

Our Solar System was formed from a cloud of gas and dust. Most of the dust mass is contained in amorphous silicates, yet crystalline silicates are abundant throughout the Solar System, reflecting the thermal and chemical alteration of solids during planet formation. (Even primitive bodies such as comets contain crystalline silicates.) Little is known about the evolution of the dust that forms Earth-like planets. Here we report spatially resolved detections and compositional analyses of these building blocks in the innermost two astronomical units of three proto-planetary disks. We find the dust in these regions to be highly crystallized, more so than any other dust observed in young stars until now. In addition, the outer region of one star has equal amounts of pyroxene and olivine, whereas the inner regions are dominated by olivine. The spectral shape of the inner-disk spectra shows surprising similarity with Solar System comets. Radial-mixing models naturally explain this resemblance as well as the gradient in chemical composition. Our observations imply that silicates crystallize before any terrestrial planets are formed, consistent with the composition of meteorites in the Solar System.

Identification of iron sulphide grains in protoplanetary disks.

Sulphur is depleted in cold dense molecular clouds with embedded young stellar objects, indicating that most of it probably resides in solid grains. Iron sulphide grains are the main sulphur species in cometary dust particles, but there has been no direct evidence for FeS in astronomical sources, which poses a considerable problem, because sulphur is a cosmically abundant element. Here we report laboratory infrared spectra of FeS grains from primitive meteorites, as well as from pyrrhotite ([Fe, Ni](1-x)S) grains in interplanetary dust, which show a broad FeS feature centred at approximately 23.5 micrometres. A similar broad feature is seen in the infrared spectra of young stellar objects, implying that FeS grains are an important but previously unrecognized component of circumstellar dust. The feature had previously been attributed to FeO. The observed astronomical line strengths are generally consistent with the depletion of sulphur from the gas phase, and with the average Galactic sulphur/silicon abundance ratio. We conclude that the missing sulphur has been found.

Detection of carbonates in dust shells around evolved stars.

Carbonates on large Solar System bodies like Earth and Mars (the latter represented by the meteorite ALH84001) form through the weathering of silicates in a watery (CO3)2- solution. The presence of carbonates in interplanetary dust particles and asteroids (again, represented by meteorites) is not completely understood, but has been attributed to aqueous alteration on a large parent body, which was subsequently shattered into smaller pieces. Despite efforts, the presence of carbonates outside the Solar System has hitherto not been established. Here we report the discovery of the carbonates calcite and dolomite in the dust shells of evolved stars, where the conditions are too primitive for the formation of large parent bodies with liquid water. These carbonates, therefore, are not formed by aqueous alteration, but perhaps through processes on the surfaces of dust or ice grains or gas phase condensation. The presence of carbonates which did not form by aqueous alteration suggests that some of the carbonates found in Solar System bodies no longer provide direct evidence that liquid water was present on large parent bodies early in the history of the Solar System.

Low-temperature crystallization of silicate dust in circumstellar disks.

Silicate dust in the interstellar medium is observed to be amorphous, yet silicate dust in comets and interplanetary dust particles is sometimes partially crystalline. The dust in disks that are thought to be forming planets around some young stars also appears to be partially crystalline. These observations suggest that as the dust goes from the precursor clouds to a planetary system, it must undergo some processing, but the nature and extent of this processing remain unknown. Here we report observations of highly crystalline silicate dust in the disks surrounding binary red-giant stars. The dust was created in amorphous form in the outer atmospheres of the red giants, and therefore must be processed in the disks to become crystalline. The temperatures in these disks are too low for the grains to anneal; therefore, some low-temperature process must be responsible. As the physical properties of the disks around young stars and red giants are similar, our results suggest that low-temperature crystallization of silicate grains also can occur in protoplanetary systems.