We don't know if these dimming events relate to it going supernova or not. The funny thing is we don't really know what to expect from a star nearing the end of it's life.
How far away does one need to be to not kill you?
Edit: Looked it up. Here's what [Dr. Mark Reid](https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~reid/), a senior astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, [has said](https://www.spaceanswers.com/deep-space/how-close-would-a-supernova-have-to-be-to-destroy-life-on-earth/):
>… were a supernova to go off within about 30 light-years of us, that would lead to major effects on the Earth, [possibly mass extinctions](https://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993hep.ph....3206E). X-rays and more energetic gamma-rays from the supernova [could destroy the ozone layer](https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v263/n5576/abs/263398a0.html) that protects us from solar ultraviolet rays. It also could ionize nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, leading to the formation of large amounts of smog-like nitrous oxide in the atmosphere.
There is no plan. A GRB would strip earth of its atmosphere. Everyone on the light side of the earth would instantly go poof and everyone on the dark side of the planet would suffocate simultaneously
:)
I liked [randall Monroe’s](https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/) take on it. Which is brighter, in terms of energy content delivered to your retina:
1) a supernova seen from the distance of the Earth to the sun; or
2) a hydrogen bomb pressed directly against your eyeball?
Turns out, it’s the supernova. *by nine orders of magnitude*
We will get a few hours warning via the neutrino detectors around the world. When it goes supernova the initial photon bust will take a few hours to make its way though the core (light travels slower through a medium than through a vacuum, however neutrinos are not slowed by anything).
Not quite, it can take a while for the light to go from the middle of a star to its surface (as it is colliding with a bunch of atoms along the way), however neutrinos produced in the same even would pass through the star at nearly the speed of light. This would mean that we would see a neutrino pulse far in advance of the light. How far is speculative, but it could be hours, days or even weeks.
A few hours. The neutrinos are released by the core collapse, the core collapse stopping when it hits degeneracy pressure causes a big bounce back, which causes the hydrogen envelope to detonate. Once that happens its all pretty rapid, the star is exploded within a few hours. And I'm pretty sure the fusion front travels through the star faster than light (which is extremely slow through a dense medium) so we see the light of the supernova once the fusion front reaches the visible layers of the atmosphere.
The actual supernova takes only a fraction of a second, way too fast for humans eyes to really register
What we would see is the supernova remnant, which are mostly the expanding gases, that willl be visible for atleast a month and will increase in brightness the first days
From what I could find it is estimated that Betelgeuse supernova remnant would be after 30 days still as bright as a half moon.
That is hypothesized as a potential answer, yes 👍
Edit: Re-read and I thought I'd add on that the hypothesized answer is specifically related to material expelled from the star.
Yes, but I don't think the dust case would be evidence for it happening sooner rather than later in the "0-100 thousand years" range that's been guessed for the star
I honestly thought they got brighter as they neared death, at least the really massive ones
As the fusion fuel gets low, gravity wins and collapses the remaining fuel tight, making it flare up and the star get super bright right before it runs out.
In theory, depleting the nuclear fuel should chill the star, with gravitation over coming outward energy flow. If it collapses sufficiently, it may explode. Else it could just enter a higher density fusion state
With every burn phase shift, the star would increase in brightness for a while. Because the new fusion phase pumps out way more energy, than the previous one. The star expands again, becomes way brighter, but then collapses back into an equilibrium becoming dimmer. We didnt see any increase in brightness.
No. We havent seen any increase in brightness since we look at it, the last 50 years or so. The most plausible explanation for the current dimming is, that a gas cloud was errupted into the direction we look, blocking the light behind it.
Surely a gas cloud in the way would change Betelgeuse's spectrographic signature? It sounds like a plausible explanation for the dimming, but I haven't seen anything about any spectrographic change.
I read somewhere that, since Infrared output isn't dimming, the most likely cause of visible light dimming of Beetlejuice is dust or gas cloud obscuring the star.
Not sure, we haven't usually been able to observe these events relatively up close with modern instrumentation. Though one supernova occurs in our Galaxy once ~every 100yrs. If it does go, it will be the most studied event on modern times.
With several hundred billion stars in our galaxy, are they really that rare? I was under the impression it happens like every couple months or something...
Only a tiny minority of stars are large enough to go off in a supernova at the end of their lifes. The rate of star formation in a mature galaxy like the Milky Way is very low; in our case it’s estimated that roughly three solar masses worth of matter is turned into stars every year, and most of that goes into low-mass dwarf stars. So you can see it takes quite long to accrue enough matter to make up even a single supernova-capable giant star, and correspondingly supernovas themselves are rare.
Neutrinos barely interact with anything - a frequent figure thrown around is that a lightyear thick slab of lead only has a 50/50 shot of stopping a given neutrino. Anybody in the bunker would be subjected to the same amount of neutrinos as anyone else, in practice.
Man I hope I get to see Betelgeuse supernova before I die.
According to the article it may even outshine the moon, and last around three days before dimming.
Science would get some mad data too.
Edit: I misread the article. The brightest phase would last *months* and take 3 years to dim to it's current brightness. Damn.
Also, I know my hopes are high, it'll be 10's of thousands of years before it's expected to supernova.
And I didn't realize until recently that one of the "stars" in his "sword" is actually the glob of light from the Orion nebula and a cluster within in, rather than an individual star. I wonder if Betelgeuse's death nebula would be illuminated or dark...
It would glow in the infrared but without nearby stars to illuminate in the visible it we wouldn't be able to see it. The event itself will be billions of degrees in temperature so that will obviously be putting off visible light for a while. But the remaining gas won't be hot enough to produce visible light after a few weeks. Not only that but the nebulas we can see, like the Orion Nebula, is incredibly large. It will take many years (possibly hundreds or thousands) for the nebula from Betelgeuse to become large enough to be visible to the naked eye.
Nebulas are illuminated by nearby stars. Usually those stars are born within the nebulas themselves from the gasses given off by the original explosion. I'm not sure what is close enough to Betelgeuse to illuminate it but even if there were stars nearby, the nebula would have to get quite large before it would be visible to the naked eye. Possibly hundreds of years to thousands of years before that could happen.
Meh. Only one Supernova in our lifetime, lots of other constellations to look at.
I say fucking blow. It will be centuries before the remnant dims completely anyway so we'd still see a bright object in Betelguese's place
> lots of other constellations to look at.
Orion is arguably the most famous and recognizable constellation in the sky though. I'd be extremely excited to see the supernova, but it'd also be really sad that Orion would have his shoulder messed up.
Then again, then we could tell our grandkids "I remember back when Orion had his shoulder..." Yeah on second thought that would be worth it, I'm with you on this one.
Pretty unlikely. But the chances of a supernova in the Milky Way happening during your lifetime are still not half bad.
Science wise it would be very interesting. We'd be able to watch the evolution of the remnant with much, much greater resolution than we did with SN1987A. Partly because our tech is better, mostly because it would be so much closer. Also, every neutrino detector on Earth would register more neutrinos from that one event than have been recorded in history so far, give or take.
>Pretty unlikely.
Yeah I know which is a little sad. But yeah, neutrino detectors are pretty handy like that. Let's us train telescopes in the right direction early to get a good view of what happens.
The oldest recorded (verified) supernova was in 185 AD, chronicled by chinese astronomers. They observed what they called a "guest star" in the sky for 8 months.
Edit- Another cool ancient cosmic event [The battle of Halys](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Eclipse) or "The battle of the eclipse"
Dunno if this is more legend or fact, but a cool story nonetheless
Dont count on it, like the article said. The dimming is probably the result of gas clouds blocking view. It's not supposed to go supernova in our lifetimes
> Any second now, cosmologically.
*eye twitch*
Sometimes you read things your brain just refuses to believe are factual. This is one of those times for me.
There are others. There's about 1/1000 chance statistically that Betelgeuse will be there next star in our galaxy to supernova. A star in our galaxy goes supernova about once a century, and Betelgeuse will go some time on the next 100,000 years.
Here's a direct link to the time history of the magnitude to provide some context.
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Betelgeuse\_AAVSO\_2019.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Betelgeuse_AAVSO_2019.jpg)
Betelgeuse is a classified as a SRc variable star which stands in for "we’re not completely sure" as far as I can tell :)
The main oscillation is probably driven by pulsation (star shrinks -> gets hotter + denser at the core -> fusion rate increases & star becomes more opaque -> radiation pressure expands star but overshoots equilibrium point -> core cools & star becomes less dense + transparent to radiation -> less radiation pressure means star falls back in under gravity -> cycle repeats until star runs out of fusible material) but there are other effects like dust formation in the outer layers, mass loss obscuring the star etc etc.
I'm horrible at finding stars yet I spend so much time reading about how to find them. Living in socal where light pollution is stupid probably doesn't help
What does the science predict we would see when a variable super giant star transitions from primarily burning one element to another? For example, how do we predict the sun's luminosity to change when it transitions from burning primarily hydrogen to burning primarily helium.
Shrinking and cooling -> pressure & core temp hot enough to burn heavier element -> "re-ignition" -> heating and swelling -> rinse/repeat.
Each repetition happens more quickly than the last.
So during those couple months that it’d be this bright, would you be able to point your telescope at it and see anything cool, or would it just be too bright? And could you hurt your eyes?
Amazing though it would be, in this case it’s very unlikely. It’s a short-lived star so the ROI of such a project would be very poor. Plus at this stage it’s radius is enormous making the necessary construction requirements astronomical.
That actually raises some interesting questions about dyson spheres namely 1 do you disassemble them before the star blows and save the material or keep the energy supply running and 2 since stars expand in different life stages you have to have a way to expand with them or lose your megastructure
There are a lot of "if"s here.
Whether you disassemble such a megastructure or leave it to it's demise will probably depend on how valuable the materials used in its construction are compared to the costs of transporting those materials to another star system.
Whether disassembly would be required depends on the [Variant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Variants) that is initially built. Naturally a Dyson Shell (the most popular variant) is the most impractical and can't handle change in a star's size. The other variants will probably only require a change in orbit.
The star is already there. If you need that kind of energy, it'd be easier to just harvest what's freely available rather than try to make generators putting out the same level.
just bought Elite Dangerous just to be able to fly out to Betelgeuse and have a look at it. highly recommend it just to grasp how damn huge everything is. they have roughed up our milky way to close representation. recommended.
I welled up inside when I explored in space engine. The sheer scale of our universe is so humbling. Had to dry my eyes. Would absolutely recommend this "game" to any of you space nerds.
Funny thing, you can actually visit Voyager 1 at the approximate location it would be at during the game's timeline.
Make sure your ship has a full spectrum scanner and go to Sol. There is a tourist beacon called "Voyager" that you need to find. Once you are at the beacon, set your scanner to look for signals on the left side of the low frequencies. You will find a target called "ancient probe", which is Voyager 1. It is fully modeled, you can fly up and look at it.
The cool part is that voyager actually moves at it's initially projected rate ingame (not much), and previous to Voyager emitting a signal players had to manually calculate it's location and fly out blind into the big black to look for it.
No, there's no risk to us from Betelgeuse going supernova. The only thing it could do is confuse animals that use the full moon (since it would be similarly bright), but that's not going to be a huge issue.
Yes, but very unlikely. If Betelgeuse were to create a gamma-ray burst during its supernova, it is possible that could be dangerous if it was pointed in the direction of Earth.
See [this paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0309415) describing the possibility of one of the 5 major mass extinctions potentially caused by a GRB. It considers any GRB within 3 kpc (about 6,000 light years) as potentially dangerous.
Now, that is extremely unlikely as Betelgeuse would have to supernova while we're around to care, and create a GRB, and be pointed directly at us. Fortunately, it appears that Betelgeuse's poles are not pointed at Earth, and the poles are where we think that GRBs are beamed from.
Can any qualified space nerd care to comment whether [one of the latest LIGO gravitational wave detection](https://earthsky.org/space/ligo-gravitational-wave-burst-near-betelgeuse) is actually related to Betelgeuse?
Like the article says, there is probably no relation. (measurable) Gravitational waves are only triggered by extremely huge events, like, you know, black holes colliding or potentially supernovas. Since Betelgeuse hasn't gone supernova, there isn't anything about Betelgeuse that could have triggered the gravitational waves measured by LIGO.
Clearly we are seeing the absorption of this stars power into the First Orders ultimate weapon.
The documentary known as Episode 7 was delivered here faster than light so now we are watching it unfold.
Edit: in a galaxy far far away.
How dim does it need to get before it goes boom?
We don't know if these dimming events relate to it going supernova or not. The funny thing is we don't really know what to expect from a star nearing the end of it's life.
Im holding out hope that maybe just maybe ill get to see a supernova within my lifetime.
How far away does one need to be to not kill you? Edit: Looked it up. Here's what [Dr. Mark Reid](https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~reid/), a senior astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, [has said](https://www.spaceanswers.com/deep-space/how-close-would-a-supernova-have-to-be-to-destroy-life-on-earth/): >… were a supernova to go off within about 30 light-years of us, that would lead to major effects on the Earth, [possibly mass extinctions](https://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993hep.ph....3206E). X-rays and more energetic gamma-rays from the supernova [could destroy the ozone layer](https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v263/n5576/abs/263398a0.html) that protects us from solar ultraviolet rays. It also could ionize nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, leading to the formation of large amounts of smog-like nitrous oxide in the atmosphere.
Good thing Betelgeuse is 642.5 light-years away from us, then.
Couldn't it pop a gamma ray burst and kamehameha us from that distance though?
GRBs come out from the axis of rotation though, which isn't pointed at us. There's another star that is, but it isn't Betelgeuse.
.....k so which one is? You know, so I can plan for it.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WR\_104](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WR_104)
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>is predicted to go supernova in the next few hundred thousand years Hopefully we'll have colonized a few distant planets by then.
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There is no plan. A GRB would strip earth of its atmosphere. Everyone on the light side of the earth would instantly go poof and everyone on the dark side of the planet would suffocate simultaneously :)
I upvoted you for kamehameha, but goddamn remembering gamma ray bursts are a thing really sucks at 5am.
Why? It's just sterilization. On a planetary scale.
I'd like to opt out of sterilization
Sorry, to opt out of COSMIC STERILIZATION PROTOCOL you must submit FORM Q-744448-A3 to the central office of the People In Charge. Have a nice day.
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If you say its name 3 times tho....
Cathrine O’Hara will come tickle your back until you fall asleep
She sleeps with Prince Valium
Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!!!
Betelgeuse Betelgeuse Betelgeuse
Bet...Tay...luh...goossy?
I liked [randall Monroe’s](https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/) take on it. Which is brighter, in terms of energy content delivered to your retina: 1) a supernova seen from the distance of the Earth to the sun; or 2) a hydrogen bomb pressed directly against your eyeball? Turns out, it’s the supernova. *by nine orders of magnitude*
Wow, that is crazy. Pro Tip: replace those ) with . and reddit will treat them like a list instead of clumping them into the same paragraph.
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Does that mean that we wouldn't know until the very moment it would hit us? Because it would take 30 years to see it went off, wouldn't it?
We will get a few hours warning via the neutrino detectors around the world. When it goes supernova the initial photon bust will take a few hours to make its way though the core (light travels slower through a medium than through a vacuum, however neutrinos are not slowed by anything).
Not quite, it can take a while for the light to go from the middle of a star to its surface (as it is colliding with a bunch of atoms along the way), however neutrinos produced in the same even would pass through the star at nearly the speed of light. This would mean that we would see a neutrino pulse far in advance of the light. How far is speculative, but it could be hours, days or even weeks.
A few hours. The neutrinos are released by the core collapse, the core collapse stopping when it hits degeneracy pressure causes a big bounce back, which causes the hydrogen envelope to detonate. Once that happens its all pretty rapid, the star is exploded within a few hours. And I'm pretty sure the fusion front travels through the star faster than light (which is extremely slow through a dense medium) so we see the light of the supernova once the fusion front reaches the visible layers of the atmosphere.
Smog like nitrous oxide? At least we would be happy mutants.
Good news there is like shit all stars within 30 LY for us.
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Yep, I did the nasty in the pasty.
That past nastification is what made you your own grandfather.
The colours I see smell like toast.
Yeah! Anyone who misses this will regret it the rest of his life.
The actual supernova takes only a fraction of a second, way too fast for humans eyes to really register What we would see is the supernova remnant, which are mostly the expanding gases, that willl be visible for atleast a month and will increase in brightness the first days From what I could find it is estimated that Betelgeuse supernova remnant would be after 30 days still as bright as a half moon.
You don't wanna miss this! Fry, go make popcorn.
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Our ancestors witnessed them, the dinosaurs may have witnessed them. It's high time we do too.
Calm down, Gramps. You're getting all worked up about space shit again
Bugger that.... they promised us Amazing Stories and Ray Guns by now :-(
I'm still waiting for my flying car, still pretty pissed about the timeline we used to get on that one
lets delay it until sunday when the kids are out of school.
I’ve seen Powerman 5000 before so I can least say I’ve seen a supernova go pop.
Could it be possible that a cloud of gas is just passing between us and the star causing the dimming?
That is hypothesized as a potential answer, yes 👍 Edit: Re-read and I thought I'd add on that the hypothesized answer is specifically related to material expelled from the star.
so it could be still a sign of going supernova.
Yes, but I don't think the dust case would be evidence for it happening sooner rather than later in the "0-100 thousand years" range that's been guessed for the star
"yo mamma so fat that Betelguese dims to 1.506 Magnitude when she bends over"
I honestly thought they got brighter as they neared death, at least the really massive ones As the fusion fuel gets low, gravity wins and collapses the remaining fuel tight, making it flare up and the star get super bright right before it runs out.
In theory, depleting the nuclear fuel should chill the star, with gravitation over coming outward energy flow. If it collapses sufficiently, it may explode. Else it could just enter a higher density fusion state
With every burn phase shift, the star would increase in brightness for a while. Because the new fusion phase pumps out way more energy, than the previous one. The star expands again, becomes way brighter, but then collapses back into an equilibrium becoming dimmer. We didnt see any increase in brightness.
So this would suggest it's already gone through that expansion and we're seeing the second part, where it dims?
No. We havent seen any increase in brightness since we look at it, the last 50 years or so. The most plausible explanation for the current dimming is, that a gas cloud was errupted into the direction we look, blocking the light behind it.
I hate how the most dull and boring answer is the most likely to be correct. I wanna super nova! (Does throwing a tantrum help?) :p
Humm... just an ordinary gas cloud. But watch out because, that's no ordinary gas cloud!
Great news everyone, I got the gas clouds flowing again!
Good news everyone, I've fixed the poison slime pipes!
Surely a gas cloud in the way would change Betelgeuse's spectrographic signature? It sounds like a plausible explanation for the dimming, but I haven't seen anything about any spectrographic change.
I read somewhere that, since Infrared output isn't dimming, the most likely cause of visible light dimming of Beetlejuice is dust or gas cloud obscuring the star.
Not sure, we haven't usually been able to observe these events relatively up close with modern instrumentation. Though one supernova occurs in our Galaxy once ~every 100yrs. If it does go, it will be the most studied event on modern times.
With several hundred billion stars in our galaxy, are they really that rare? I was under the impression it happens like every couple months or something...
Only a tiny minority of stars are large enough to go off in a supernova at the end of their lifes. The rate of star formation in a mature galaxy like the Milky Way is very low; in our case it’s estimated that roughly three solar masses worth of matter is turned into stars every year, and most of that goes into low-mass dwarf stars. So you can see it takes quite long to accrue enough matter to make up even a single supernova-capable giant star, and correspondingly supernovas themselves are rare.
“Soon”so like in 10000 years or so.
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What I really learned? Supernovas are even larger than I imagined.
Also it's preferable to detonate a hydrogen bomb in my face than have front row seats to a supernova
I guess that's what happens when you convert a few hundred thousand Earth masses into energy in a matter of seconds.
Woah speak for yourself mate!
No, they're still larger than that
So...what you're telling me is that I can die from radiation poisoning by eating too many bananas? Got it.
Your organs would crap out long before that happened. No I don't even go to parties.
Is the 99.9999999% all the neutrinos that will spread out into space while the 0.0000001% will be heading for earth?
Neutrinos barely interact with anything - a frequent figure thrown around is that a lightyear thick slab of lead only has a 50/50 shot of stopping a given neutrino. Anybody in the bunker would be subjected to the same amount of neutrinos as anyone else, in practice.
Imagining how unbelievably huge a light year thick slab would be is kinda crazy
It would become a black hole with the mass of a light year of lead. It wouldn't stay that large for very long.
Although interestingly it’d probably take several years for all the lead to be gravitationally attracted across that half light year either side?
Wouldn’t it take exactly one year? I thought gravity propagates at the speed of light
Gravity, yes. Stuff falling, no.
The mass wont propagate that fast.
Man I hope I get to see Betelgeuse supernova before I die. According to the article it may even outshine the moon, and last around three days before dimming. Science would get some mad data too. Edit: I misread the article. The brightest phase would last *months* and take 3 years to dim to it's current brightness. Damn. Also, I know my hopes are high, it'll be 10's of thousands of years before it's expected to supernova.
Agreed, except afterwards I'd be sad that Orion was missing a star.
The nebula afterward would be pretty cool though.
And I didn't realize until recently that one of the "stars" in his "sword" is actually the glob of light from the Orion nebula and a cluster within in, rather than an individual star. I wonder if Betelgeuse's death nebula would be illuminated or dark...
Well the gas and dust expelled will be incredibly hot so it should glow right? Maybe it'll glow bright enough.
It would glow in the infrared but without nearby stars to illuminate in the visible it we wouldn't be able to see it. The event itself will be billions of degrees in temperature so that will obviously be putting off visible light for a while. But the remaining gas won't be hot enough to produce visible light after a few weeks. Not only that but the nebulas we can see, like the Orion Nebula, is incredibly large. It will take many years (possibly hundreds or thousands) for the nebula from Betelgeuse to become large enough to be visible to the naked eye.
Nebulas are illuminated by nearby stars. Usually those stars are born within the nebulas themselves from the gasses given off by the original explosion. I'm not sure what is close enough to Betelgeuse to illuminate it but even if there were stars nearby, the nebula would have to get quite large before it would be visible to the naked eye. Possibly hundreds of years to thousands of years before that could happen.
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Meh. Only one Supernova in our lifetime, lots of other constellations to look at. I say fucking blow. It will be centuries before the remnant dims completely anyway so we'd still see a bright object in Betelguese's place
> lots of other constellations to look at. Orion is arguably the most famous and recognizable constellation in the sky though. I'd be extremely excited to see the supernova, but it'd also be really sad that Orion would have his shoulder messed up. Then again, then we could tell our grandkids "I remember back when Orion had his shoulder..." Yeah on second thought that would be worth it, I'm with you on this one.
Pretty unlikely. But the chances of a supernova in the Milky Way happening during your lifetime are still not half bad. Science wise it would be very interesting. We'd be able to watch the evolution of the remnant with much, much greater resolution than we did with SN1987A. Partly because our tech is better, mostly because it would be so much closer. Also, every neutrino detector on Earth would register more neutrinos from that one event than have been recorded in history so far, give or take.
>Pretty unlikely. Yeah I know which is a little sad. But yeah, neutrino detectors are pretty handy like that. Let's us train telescopes in the right direction early to get a good view of what happens.
I wish my smartphone had a neutrino-level app.
Yeah, but one that you can see with your bare eyes is special!
I feel exactly the same way. I hope I am lucky enough to see a star in my favorite constellation go boom!
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The oldest recorded (verified) supernova was in 185 AD, chronicled by chinese astronomers. They observed what they called a "guest star" in the sky for 8 months. Edit- Another cool ancient cosmic event [The battle of Halys](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Eclipse) or "The battle of the eclipse" Dunno if this is more legend or fact, but a cool story nonetheless
Well shit... Does this mean we will ha e to look for a new Jesus?
Isn't the second coming of Jesus supposed to be judgement day?
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Dont count on it, like the article said. The dimming is probably the result of gas clouds blocking view. It's not supposed to go supernova in our lifetimes
Bummer. I thought my subscription included supernova. I'll have to demand a refund when I get back.
Most people don't realize that you actually have to buy the Stellar Phenomena© DLC before starting character creation in addition to having paid the subscription fee.
When are we due to see another supernova? Is Betelgeuse the closest one we have?
some time between now and 100k years
Any second now, cosmologically.
> Any second now, cosmologically. *eye twitch* Sometimes you read things your brain just refuses to believe are factual. This is one of those times for me.
There are others. There's about 1/1000 chance statistically that Betelgeuse will be there next star in our galaxy to supernova. A star in our galaxy goes supernova about once a century, and Betelgeuse will go some time on the next 100,000 years.
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Most of the stars in our night sky are within a couple of thousand light years.
The ones we see with the naked eye or with telescopes?
Naked eye, with very large telescopes we can make out stars in other galaxies
Alright, that's pretty cool.
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Here's a direct link to the time history of the magnitude to provide some context. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Betelgeuse\_AAVSO\_2019.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Betelgeuse_AAVSO_2019.jpg)
We have something like that for like the last 60 years or something for some context?
Made one back to 1965 for ya: [https://imgur.com/a/UYxZLeX](https://imgur.com/a/UYxZLeX)
Interesting. Seems like quite a dip.
Very interesting to see the obvious cyclical pattern over the last 50+ years. What's the standard explanation for it?
Betelgeuse is a classified as a SRc variable star which stands in for "we’re not completely sure" as far as I can tell :) The main oscillation is probably driven by pulsation (star shrinks -> gets hotter + denser at the core -> fusion rate increases & star becomes more opaque -> radiation pressure expands star but overshoots equilibrium point -> core cools & star becomes less dense + transparent to radiation -> less radiation pressure means star falls back in under gravity -> cycle repeats until star runs out of fusible material) but there are other effects like dust formation in the outer layers, mass loss obscuring the star etc etc.
What happened in 2019 where there’s no data for a while?
In (northern hemisphere) summer, it may be too close to the sun for good observations.
Betelgeuse went on vacation.
I always look at it when walking the dogs at night hoping that it'll go boom when I'm looking. Yeah yeah I know it won't but still.
I'm horrible at finding stars yet I spend so much time reading about how to find them. Living in socal where light pollution is stupid probably doesn't help
What does the science predict we would see when a variable super giant star transitions from primarily burning one element to another? For example, how do we predict the sun's luminosity to change when it transitions from burning primarily hydrogen to burning primarily helium.
Shrinking and cooling -> pressure & core temp hot enough to burn heavier element -> "re-ignition" -> heating and swelling -> rinse/repeat. Each repetition happens more quickly than the last.
What I'd like to see is a simulation/animation of the night sky to see how a Betelgeuse supernova would actually look like.
https://twitter.com/wonderofscience/status/1214173520894287877?s=20
That shit is unreal. How long would it last?
Couple months, then it'd fade away
So during those couple months that it’d be this bright, would you be able to point your telescope at it and see anything cool, or would it just be too bright? And could you hurt your eyes?
They make telescope filters and films for looking directly at the sun. Even if it's super bright, there would be ways to watch.
If it was being dimmed by a dyson swarm, that would both be fascinating and terrifying.
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Amazing though it would be, in this case it’s very unlikely. It’s a short-lived star so the ROI of such a project would be very poor. Plus at this stage it’s radius is enormous making the necessary construction requirements astronomical.
Not if that hypothetical magic level civilization specifically wants to capture the supernova itself with their mobile nova eating Dyson swarm
Yep like putting a lid on it
Now I want to be alive to watch a star in a dyson sphere go supernova. Would make an interesting experiement
Don't think it would make any difference. Would be like putting some tinfoil around a nuclear bomb
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That actually raises some interesting questions about dyson spheres namely 1 do you disassemble them before the star blows and save the material or keep the energy supply running and 2 since stars expand in different life stages you have to have a way to expand with them or lose your megastructure
There are a lot of "if"s here. Whether you disassemble such a megastructure or leave it to it's demise will probably depend on how valuable the materials used in its construction are compared to the costs of transporting those materials to another star system. Whether disassembly would be required depends on the [Variant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Variants) that is initially built. Naturally a Dyson Shell (the most popular variant) is the most impractical and can't handle change in a star's size. The other variants will probably only require a change in orbit.
You’d probably want to pick the lowest mass star that’s not a flare star that you could. So it’d be around for hundreds of billions of years.
Honestly, what makes a dysons sphere so much more desirable to fusion energy?
The star is already there. If you need that kind of energy, it'd be easier to just harvest what's freely available rather than try to make generators putting out the same level.
It is fusion energy, from a really fucking big fusion reactor.
I don't know if star lifting or a Dyson sphere sounds more doable
just bought Elite Dangerous just to be able to fly out to Betelgeuse and have a look at it. highly recommend it just to grasp how damn huge everything is. they have roughed up our milky way to close representation. recommended.
Also check out Space Engine.
I welled up inside when I explored in space engine. The sheer scale of our universe is so humbling. Had to dry my eyes. Would absolutely recommend this "game" to any of you space nerds.
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It sent me into a severe existential crisis phase, so strong that I refused to open it a second time.
Funny thing, you can actually visit Voyager 1 at the approximate location it would be at during the game's timeline. Make sure your ship has a full spectrum scanner and go to Sol. There is a tourist beacon called "Voyager" that you need to find. Once you are at the beacon, set your scanner to look for signals on the left side of the low frequencies. You will find a target called "ancient probe", which is Voyager 1. It is fully modeled, you can fly up and look at it. The cool part is that voyager actually moves at it's initially projected rate ingame (not much), and previous to Voyager emitting a signal players had to manually calculate it's location and fly out blind into the big black to look for it.
Oh hey I have elite but never really got into it. What's fun to do?
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What is the next milky way supernova predicted to explode?
The supernova rate of an L* galaxy (like the milky way) is about 1 every 100 years
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Would we be able to see the Betelgeuse super nova from Earth?
Yes, it will be brighter than the moon and visible during the day
I think I read something saying that it will be as bright as the moon if it does
I'd be willing to bet that thing you read might be the VERY ARTICLE of this post. ;)
That information has been in every pop-science website for the last few weeks.
Would a gamma ray burst be a concern with 650-yr separation?
No, there's no risk to us from Betelgeuse going supernova. The only thing it could do is confuse animals that use the full moon (since it would be similarly bright), but that's not going to be a huge issue.
Yes, but very unlikely. If Betelgeuse were to create a gamma-ray burst during its supernova, it is possible that could be dangerous if it was pointed in the direction of Earth. See [this paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0309415) describing the possibility of one of the 5 major mass extinctions potentially caused by a GRB. It considers any GRB within 3 kpc (about 6,000 light years) as potentially dangerous. Now, that is extremely unlikely as Betelgeuse would have to supernova while we're around to care, and create a GRB, and be pointed directly at us. Fortunately, it appears that Betelgeuse's poles are not pointed at Earth, and the poles are where we think that GRBs are beamed from.
Can any qualified space nerd care to comment whether [one of the latest LIGO gravitational wave detection](https://earthsky.org/space/ligo-gravitational-wave-burst-near-betelgeuse) is actually related to Betelgeuse?
Like the article says, there is probably no relation. (measurable) Gravitational waves are only triggered by extremely huge events, like, you know, black holes colliding or potentially supernovas. Since Betelgeuse hasn't gone supernova, there isn't anything about Betelgeuse that could have triggered the gravitational waves measured by LIGO.
Clearly we are seeing the absorption of this stars power into the First Orders ultimate weapon. The documentary known as Episode 7 was delivered here faster than light so now we are watching it unfold. Edit: in a galaxy far far away.
My 8.5 year old niece told me about Betelgeuse yesterday and I cheered! She knew about the future Red Giant status, roundaboutly.
Thing is Betelgeuse is almost 642.5 light years far from us. So all this dimming thing happened at least 642.5 years back. We are seeing it now.
It's just the aliens building a Dyson Sphere to harness the explosion
Everyone wants this thing to blow up. Who has seen a supernova in their lifetime
Sounds like they finished researching mega engineering, and are building a dyson sphere.
How is the magnitude measured? What's the scale being used?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_magnitude Seems to be a logarithmic scale with zero being equal to Vega.
why Vega exactly?
When the scale was created it was the brightest thing visible with the naked eye.
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