English: Photo of the constellation Orion produced by NOIRLab in collaboration with Eckhard Slawik, a German astrophotographer. This is the annotated version.

Steve Howell, a senior research scientist at Ames, recognized the ground-based Gemini North telescope in Hawai’i, one of the largest in the world, paired with a special, high-resolution camera built by NASA, had the potential to directly observe the close companion to Betelgeuse, despite the atmospheric blurring. Having found the long-anticipated companion star, Howell turned to giving it a name. The traditional star name “Betelgeuse” derives from Arabic, meaning “the hand of al-Jawza’”, a female figure in old Arabian legend. Fittingly, Howell’s team named the orbiting companion “Siwarha”, meaning “her bracelet”.