Association of continuum hot patches with upwelling gas

Determine whether the hotter continuum patches on Betelgeuse are consistently associated with blue-shifted upwelling molecular gas by obtaining deeper, spatially resolved high-resolution spectra at future epochs.

Background

The molecular absorption is stronger and broader near the bright continuum patches, particularly near the north-east hotspot, and extends toward strongly blue-shifted velocities. This behavior is compatible with shocks or convective-cell overshoot producing upwelling gas, but the paper also emphasizes that hydrodynamic models allow hot regions to occur without convective outflow. Consequently, establishing a persistent association requires additional high-resolution observations over multiple epochs.

References

Deeper spectra at high spatial resolution at future epochs would be necessary to confirm whether the hotter continuum patches are consistently associated with blue-shifted upwelling gas.

— ALMA high resolution observations of Betelgeuse: Persistent structure spanning the inner atmosphere  (2608.19339 - Dent et al., 19 Aug 2026) in Section 4, subsection “Stellar disk structure” (label sec:cont_discuss)