Betelgeuse to Go Supernova?

[Loredoctor]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking about...is the mass loss and whatever based on what it looks like to us right now?

Technically all red supergiants will lose mass due to a strong stellar wind. That has not been observed, but it is likely since our own star has one. Because of optical interferometry, astronomers have measured the star's disc as opposed to seeing a point. Based on these observations, they know that the disc pulsates, and I guess they also have seen that it is currently smaller.

Bear in mind that we're watching 640-year-old newscasts.

Is it possible to predict the Second World War by studying newsreels of (say) Neville Chamberlain triumphantly waving a piece of paper? Probably not.

Studying the detailed changes in Betelguese over the span of 15 years is quite an achievement, but that's less than a blink in the lifetime of a star, and that particular 15 year long blink happened 43 blinks ago.

True, but the mass loss is caused by processes that astrophysicists and astronomers understand. As well, why Betelgeuse is red supergiant. Current observations suggest that the star has shrunk, knowing that the star pulsates.

Any further predictions are bound to have a large margin of error; most especially when the star is to turn supernova.

[Demondime-a-dozen-spawn]

I do understand that stellar evolution has been extrapolated from observing large numbers of stars of the same class in different stages of that evolution.

Being so much more massive than our puny Sun, and already off the Main Sequence, Betelgeuse's days are indeed numbered. Still, considering the timescales involved, prognostications of any "imminent" supernova are a total crapshoot.

BTW, when I said "point source," I meant naked eye point source, but the more I think about it, the more I think it could easily loom large in a hurry.

Also: Betelgeuse means "the armpit of the giant." The giant being Orion the Hunter, though I prefer the Arabic name and it's derivatives - al Jabbar, Algebar, "The Giant."

[Avatar]

Yeah, I just meant that if it takes X years for that information to travel to us, what it's telling us is the state of the star x years ago. So if Betelguese goes (visibly) nova in our lifetimes, it's actually not even there anymore right now?

--A

[Loredoctor]

Yeah, I just meant that if it takes X years for that information to travel to us, what it's telling us is the state of the star x years ago. So if Betelguese goes (visibly) nova in our lifetimes, it's actually not even there anymore right now?

--A

Correct; we would be seeing Betelguese in the past. If it were turn supernova today, our descendants 640 years from now would see it explode. Up until that moment, the star would be relatively normal.

[Demondime-a-dozen-spawn]

As much as I dislike continuing to harp on this, that's why I think we shouldn't make too much of news that's 640 years out of date about something that may not (to our perception) come to pass for 640 years to come, or longer.

[rdhopeca]

As much as I dislike continuing to harp on this, that's why I think we shouldn't make too much of news that's 640 years out of date about something that may not (to our perception) come to pass for 640 years to come, or longer.

Provided, of course, the radiation and light and so forth don't actually do anything bad to us...like fry us all with a lethal overdose of UV.

[Demondime-a-dozen-spawn]

No sense worrying about something we can't do anything about in any case.

Our own Sun could flare us to a crisp at any time.

That light radiation is at a 500 second remove.

[ur-monkey]

I seem to recall a supernova in 1987 when I was 13...

[sindatur]

The end of the world in 2012 or the new age will never occur And Nostradamus is a git.

Ya think?!?



The worst aspect of the EndoftheWorlders IMO, is not that they predict the end of the World, but that they're gleefully looking forward to it.

Must be Americans afraid of the current Administration's tax agenda