LERMA UMR8112

Red supergiant stars are important contributors to the chemical enrichment of the Universe. Together with asymptotic giant branch stars, their lower mass counterpart, they contribute ~ 85% of gas and ~ 35% of dust to the total enrichment of the interstellar medium. Moreover, the stellar wind has a crucial impact on the final mass, hence on the nature of the compact remnant left after the supernova: a 20 solar mass star can loose up to 60% of its mass during its life. Yet the mechanism at the origin of the red supergiant mass loss remains unknown: there is no physical scenario to lift material from the photosphere up to the dust condensation zone where radiative pressure on small grains can drive the wind.

In November-December 2019, the prototypical red supergiant Betelgeuse started an impressive dimming that brought it to 37% of its average optical brightness in February 2020. It is dimmer than this star has been since quantitative magnitude measurements have been recorded (150 years). We have observed Betelgeuse at high angular resolution during this peculiar event with the VLT/SPHERE, VLTI/GRAVITY and VLTI/MATISSE instruments. I will present the first results of this multi-wavelength and multi-technique campaign and bring them in the context of the study of the red supergiant mass loss.