Thank you for posting @steemydave . No doubt you have seen the recent SPHERE image of Betelgeuse which shows what might be a large cloud of dust obscuring much of the star and reducing it's current brightness to a third of it's normal brightness. The constellation of Orion of which Betelgeuse is part of looks strange as result.
Hey Terry! Very honored to have you stop by my post and comment. I have seen the latests SPHERE imagery and found that dust cloud worth looking at. I think Betelgeuse's current dimming is a combination of that dust cloud and a rather large, powerful and dominant convection cell thats taking its time shuttling the energy and luminosity to Betelgeuse's surface. I dont think its the core getting ready to go. I think Betelgeuse has a good amount of time left before it fuses silicon especially if it actually turns out to be feeding off a companion like Wheeler's team believes. He has a new report coming out on it pretty soon. Will be interesting to see whats in it.
Anyways, glad you stopped by and I thank you.