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rfmcdonaldBetelgeuse, the brightest star in the constellation Orion (hence its name Alpha Orionis) forming the northwesternmost corner of that constellation and the ninth-brightest star in the night sky massive star. Though only a few years old, its mass-twenty times that of the Sun--means that it's a "highly evolved" star, aging and fluctuating hugely in light and size; its size is huge regardless, its size stretching beyond the orbit fo Neptune. Even though its something like six hundred light-years away, Betelgeuse is such a huge star that astronomers have actually been able image its disk for more than a decade.
Betelgeuse is a fine candidate for a supernova, with its mass and its age and its instabilities. Astronomers predict that it's likely to do just that at some time in the next thousand years. It may have done that already, actually, but because of the limits of the speed of light we just wouldn't know. The indispensable James Nicoll has linked to a report--based on an unsubstantiated report, but still--that Betelgeuse is about to burst forth any day now.
Supernovaed Betelgeuse would be a bright, bright star. "The supernova that created the Crab Nebula, SN 1054, was bright enough to see in daylight for 23 days, and remained visible for 653 days ... and it was 6,300 LY away. Betelgeuse is almost 12 times closer, and can be expected to appear around 140 times brighter by virtue of that alone." Earth is far enough away from Betelgeuse that there's not going to be apart from the amazing show of brightness; Betelgeuse certainly wouldn't do what Hobus did to Romulus.
This is, I repeat, an unconfirmed report. But it's a cool one. Wouldn't I love to see a supernova with my own naked eye!
Betelgeuse is a fine candidate for a supernova, with its mass and its age and its instabilities. Astronomers predict that it's likely to do just that at some time in the next thousand years. It may have done that already, actually, but because of the limits of the speed of light we just wouldn't know. The indispensable James Nicoll has linked to a report--based on an unsubstantiated report, but still--that Betelgeuse is about to burst forth any day now.
Betelgeuse has been shrinking continuously since 1993, at an increasing rate. By June 2009, it had shrunk 15% from its size as measured in 1993.
But wait! There's more. It is rumored, though I have been unable to find any reliable confirmation of the source (which is claimed to be first-hand) that the latest observations from Mauna Kea show that Betelgeuse is now shrinking so fast it is no longer round. (Due to conservation of angular momentum, when a massive star collapses gravitationally, it collapses faster at the poles, becoming increasingly oblate — flattened — as its final collapse accelerates.)
What does this mean?
Well, briefly, what it means — if true — is that Betelgeuse could be within as little as weeks of a Type II (core collapse) supernova.
Supernovaed Betelgeuse would be a bright, bright star. "The supernova that created the Crab Nebula, SN 1054, was bright enough to see in daylight for 23 days, and remained visible for 653 days ... and it was 6,300 LY away. Betelgeuse is almost 12 times closer, and can be expected to appear around 140 times brighter by virtue of that alone." Earth is far enough away from Betelgeuse that there's not going to be apart from the amazing show of brightness; Betelgeuse certainly wouldn't do what Hobus did to Romulus.
This is, I repeat, an unconfirmed report. But it's a cool one. Wouldn't I love to see a supernova with my own naked eye!
