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
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday January 02 2020, @05:58AM (6 children)
Space
Ars Technica - Eric Berger [arstechnica.com]
NASASpaceFlight [nasaspaceflight.com]
Space News [spacenews.com]
Teslarati SpaceX News [teslarati.com]
Universe Today [universetoday.com]
Science
Nature [nature.com]
ScienceDaily [sciencedaily.com] (superior to Phys.org)
Science Magazine [sciencemag.org]
Science News [sciencenews.org]
Computing
AnandTech [anandtech.com]
Guru3D [guru3d.com]
IEEE Spectrum [ieee.org]
The Register [theregister.co.uk]
TorrentFreak [torrentfreak.com] (torrents, streaming, file sharing, digital liberty)
Wccftech [wccftech.com] (low quality, but used to track hardware rumors)
YouTube
AdoredTV [youtube.com] (personal computing)
Coreteks [youtube.com] (personal computing)
ETA Prime [youtube.com] (game emulation, single board computers)
Everyday Astronaut [youtube.com] (space launches)
ExplainingComputers [youtube.com] (single board computers, etc.)
Fraser Cain [youtube.com] (space, Universe Today owner)
Isaac Arthur [youtube.com] (space, futurism, philosophy)
Moore's Law is Dead [youtube.com] (personal computing)
Scott Manley [youtube.com] (space)
spaceXcentric [youtube.com] (SpaceX)
Both "Space News" and "Science News" are good despite the generic names.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @07:14AM
Awesome! Lots of stuff to check out there. And yeah, SpaceNews is my go-to for information on recent space related launches and events.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @10:55AM (1 child)
el reg is dead now, boss
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 03 2020, @01:04AM
Nah.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @06:51PM (2 children)
On Space, a few more nice sites:
Centauri Dreams [centauri-dreams.org] - Longform articles on space, often technical, with a great audience/discussion with contributors such as Robert Zubrin. [centauri-dreams.org]
Atomic Rockets [projectrho.com] - An amusing mixture of about a century of sci-fi concepts paired alongside hard science and analysis. For instance artificial gravity [projectrho.com].
NASA's JPL Solar System Tools [nasa.gov] All sorts of really incredible tools and information relating to space, our solar system, and the bodies within it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 03 2020, @01:11AM
I didn't realize how much content was on Centauri Dreams.
This is usable [nasa.gov], or use the RSS feeds [nasa.gov]. NASA's site design is not the best.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday January 04 2020, @12:43AM
Sky and Telescope [skyandtelescope.com] is also pretty good. The articles seem to have more images than other sites.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]