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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 31 2019, @10:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the tempest-in-a-belt dept.

Waiting for Betelgeuse: what's up with the tempestuous star?:

Have you noticed that Orion the Hunter—one of the most iconic and familiar of the wintertime constellations—is looking a little... different as of late? The culprit is its upper shoulder star Alpha Orionis, aka Betelgeuse, which is looking markedly faint, the faintest it has been for the 21st century.

When will this nearby supernova candidate pop, and what would look like if it did?

[...] Fortunately for us, we're safely out of the 50 light-year 'kill zone' for receiving any inbound lethal radiation from Betelgeuse: A supernova would simply be a scientifically interesting event, and put on a good show. Ancient supernovae may have had a hand in the evolution of life on Earth, and a recent study suggests that one might even have forced early humans to walk upright.

What would a supernova in Orion look like? Well, using the last supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud (also a Type IIb event) as a guide, we calculate that when it does blow, Betelgeuse would shine at magnitude -10. That's 16 times fainter than a full moon, but 100 times brighter than Venus, making it easily visible in the daytime sky. A Betelgeuse-gone-supernova would also easily cast noticeable nighttime shadows.

[...] For now though, we're in a wait-and-see-mode for any New Year's Eve fireworks from Betelgeuse. Such an occurrence would be bittersweet: We would be extraordinarily lucky to see Betelgeuse go supernova in our lifetime... but familiar Orion the Hunter would never look the same again.

Also at CNET


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 01 2020, @06:44PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday January 01 2020, @06:44PM (#938317)

    "an article I read" could be on "Wired".

    It's entirely possible it was "Wired" - I'm not very discerning about my entertainment news sources, they mostly come in via the Google Home feed (or whatever that leftmost page swipe on Android is...) The thing that stuck out for me was that the palliative article was the first one to show in my feed, then there was a lag of several days, then there was a flood of more sensational articles.

    Things I care about, I e-mail a link to myself for future reference. Stuff like stars that may or may not go nova... while interesting, they're not exactly actionable items.

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