Seething supergiant Betelgeuse –a star so huge it could someday collapse into a black hole or neutron star, which would make it the closest black hole to Earth some 725 light-years distant– has displayed unprecedentedly large drop in its brightness in early 2020, prompting speculation that the pulsing may be a dire prelude. A new study by an international team of scientists concluded that the star is in the early core helium-burning phase (more than 100,000 years before a supernova event) and has smaller mass and radius–and is closer to Earth–than previously thought. If the bright-red object replaced the Sun at the center of our solar system, its outer surface would extend past the orbit of Jupiter.