UPDATE: read the comments… now lookin’ extremely unlikely. Bummer.
http://unixronin.dreamwidth.org/715135.html
Well, briefly, what it means – if true – is that Betelgeuse could be within as little as weeks of a Type II (core collapse) supernova. (Astronomers have considered for some time that Betelgeuse has the potential to go supernova any time in the next thousand years or so. “Any time” may just turn out to be rather sooner than expected.)
IF this happens, not to put too fine a point on it, it will almost undoubtedly be among the most dramatic astronomical events ever observed by human eyes. A type II supernova can briefly outshine an entire galaxy … and this one will be only a little over five hundred LY away. 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. And as noted at the beginning of this post, Betelgeuse is the ninth largest star known to exist in the universe.
IF this happens, it will be one hell of a show. The down side, of course, is that the Orion constelaltion will be forever destroyed. But, them’s the breaks. If it does happen in the next few weeks, it’ll be a daytime supernova, as Orion and Betelgeuse are above the horizon during daylight hours now. Woulda been better as a nighttime show, of course.
13 Responses to “BA-BAMM!!! (probably not)”
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Hmmmm wouldn’t it be pretty dangerous (utterly lethal, actually) to good old pathetic earthlings??
So, have you found any second source for this observation that the star may be flattening?
Talk about global warming.
Hopefully the Hubble would be pointed the right way. Could be one of these “any day now” for a thousand years though couldn’t it?
> found any second source
Nope. Caveat emptor, I suppose.
> “any day now” for a thousand years
Yup. Some of the discussion seems to be that this means that Betelgeuse is exitting the normal hydrogen burning phase, which means the end is near… as in tens to a hundred thousand or so years near. If, however, it means that betelgeuse is ending the Helium:carbon/oxygen burning phase, then there are a few thousand years left. if it means Betelgeuse is ending the carbon burnign phase, thena few hundred. If it’s ending the neon burning phase, maybe three years. If it’s ending the oxygen burning phase, months left. But once its done burning silicon into iron, that’s it.
Supernova are not overly well understood in practice, as there have only been a few spotted since the telescope, and those all quite distant. Accoding to some (ahem), since we’ve not seen a supernova go off close-up, any theorizing about them is “non-science.” Whiel such claims are of course rubbish, reality has a tendency to be a bit more complex than theory. So Betelgeuse just might throw a hell of a surprise our way.
> wouldn’t it be pretty dangerous
Very unlikely. Far too far away. The inverse square law saves our butts once again!
Thanks. I’ll pass this on to the teachers I know. All they have to do is to get their noses out of the SOL guidebooks. (Why did they call it SOL? Anything else would have avoided lots of laughter.)
Hey, if the constellation Orion is changed, will the project logo be changed? Will they have to move the pyramids to get them back in line?
Oh goodie, fireworks!
Jim
Article now updated; no ka-boom imminent:
“Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 01:59 am (UTC)
Unfortunately for stargazers and astronomers everywhere, the evidence is looking stronger and stronger that the original rumor that began all this speculation and calculation was exactly that, and nothing more – a rumor.
Oh, well. I was looking forward to the light show.”
50/50 chance that the supernova would be a daytime show. Orion is not below the horizon all year, after all, and “soon” does not mean “next week” when we are talking about potential supernovae.
Here’s some more on the explosion story:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/06/01/is-betelgeuse-about-to-blow/
Darn, no boom.
But as a more practical note, does anyone have any links to research on what the EM intensity across longer wave frequencies would be at our distance would be if it did go boom?
It should go off at the start of 2012
Speaking of loud noises we can;t hear, there’s a report that there’s been another ranging shot that hit Jupiter. http://www.cosmicdiary.org/blogs/nasa/franck_marchis/?p=766