Pandemic Time

The Clockless Clock, Chapter 1

Part of the The Clockless Clock book project.

In early February, 2020, even as Covid19 was spreading rapidly across the world, a far more dramatic phenomenon in absolute terms was playing out in the skies: the sudden dimming of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse is what is known as a variable star — a natural clock in the sky that exhibits a …