Somethings going on in the sky. In Orion, the red supergiant star known as Betelgeuse is looking faint, dropping rapidly in brightness since October and is now at ~1.3 to 1.5 magnitude. Normally it burns brightly, as seen in the upper left in the photo below, but it has now dipped so low in magnitude it is not even in the top 20 brightest stars in the night sky.
Betelgeuse is a distinctly reddish, semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude varies between +0.0 and +1.3, the widest range of any first-magnitude star. At near-infrared wavelengths, Betelgeuse is the brightest star in the night sky. In visible wavelengths, it is (was) the 9th brightest star in the night sky and 2nd-brightest in the constellation of Orion.
According to Wikipedia:
Due to its distinctive orange-red color, Betelgeuse is easy to spot with the naked eye in the night sky. It is one of three stars that make up the Winter Triangle asterism, and it marks the center of the Winter Hexagon. At the beginning of January of each year, it can be seen rising in the east just after sunset. Between mid-September to mid-March (best in mid-December), it is visible to virtually every inhabited region of the globe, except in Antarctica at latitudes south of 82°. In May (moderate northern latitudes) or June (southern latitudes), the red supergiant can be seen briefly on the western horizon after sunset, reappearing again a few months later on the eastern horizon before sunrise. In the intermediate period (June–July) it is invisible to the naked eye (visible only with a telescope in daylight), unless around midday (when the Sun is below horizon) on Antarctic regions between 70° and 80° south latitude.
Betelgeuse is a variable star whose visual magnitude ranges between 0.0 and +1.3. There are periods when it will surpass Rigel to become the sixth brightest star, and occasionally it will be even brighter than Capella. At its faintest Betelgeuse can fall behind Deneb and Beta Crucis, themselves both slightly variable, to be the 20th-brightest star.
It is also unimaginably huge. If placed where our sun is today, it would swallow Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars and even Jupiter.
Currently, some astronomers have been speculating that the rapid dimming is a precursor to a supernova event. Some are saying no, that it’s just business as usual for a variable star. Looking at the data, it certainly is highly variable.
This much is clear: due to what it is, a red supergiant, Betelgeuse will eventually explode as a supernova. It is roughly 550-650 light-years away (parallax measurement is uncertain due to its size) and when it goes supernova, it will be spectacular.
The question is, is what we are seeing now just some behavior of a variable star, or the indications it is shrinking and about to explode?
According to the Astronomer’s Telegram, it may simply be periodic coincidence:
This appears to be the faintest the star has been measured since photoelectric observations have been carried out of the star. However, photoelectric photometry carried out during late-1926 / early-1927 by Joel Stebbins (1931: Pub. Washburn Obs., 15, 177) indicates that Betelgeuse declined to Vâ ~+1.25 mag.
At its average maximum brightness light (V ~ 0.3 – 0.4 mag), Betelgeuse is the 6 – 7th brightest star. But by 2019 mid-December the star has slipped to the ~21st brightest star. The red supergiant is now closer in brightness to Bellatrix (V =+1.64 mag) than to Rigel (V =+0.13 mag). Wing three-band Near-IR and TiO photometry carried out at Wasatonic Observatory shows that Betelgeuse is also cooler with an inferred spectral-type near ~M3.5 Iab (Teff ~ 3,545 K from TiO-photometry).
This is about 150 K cooler than measured near maximum light. Analysis of the last 25-yrs of V-band and Wing TiO and Near-IR photometry shows a dominant ~425+/-10 day period as well as a long-term ~5.9+/-0.5 year period. The current faintness of Betelgeuse appears to arise from the coincidence of the star being near the minimum light of the ~5.9-yr light-cycle as well as near, the deeper than usual, minimum of the ~425-d period.
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=13365
Either way, it is fascinating.
A commenter here mentioned neutrino’s would arrive first before the light. It appears there are several neutrino detectors out there.
I wonder how much sooner the neutrino’s would arrive and if tge detectors such as this one
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/super-kamiokande-neutrino-detector-is-unbelievably-beautiful-2018-6
Would be a great early warning system.
Neutrinos.
I’ve found a live neutrino detector site:
https://nusoft.fnal.gov/nova/public/
Look like a neutrino detector would give approximately a 3 hour heads up of the incoming light show:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newscientist.com/article/dn20957-dimension-hop-may-allow-neutrinos-to-cheat-light-speed/amp/
You can sign up for alerts from the Supernova Detection Network:
https://snews.bnl.gov/alert.html
In the event of an explosion, ionizing gamma rays will cause a drastic drop in global temperature.
“About to supernova” – if so what is the time frame? Sometime between now and the next millennium?
And if it is true I can’t forget to say Nooooo! Don’t supernova! Orion won’t be whole without you!
It’s just hype, don’t worry about it. Read the above.
Ooooooooh, can’t wait, he is in our south facing window every night.
Would love to see it “live” as it happens.
I’m not all that plussed about it at this point, but if it drops to maybe 1.8-2.0, I’ll definitely be expecting a supernova pretty soon, that would indicate its starting to rapidly contract. Thats the other problem with it being so huge: the core could already have sufficient mass within its Schwartzild Radius to become a black hole, but all the glowey mass we see is still far outside any quick “suckey in” part of the gravity well, given its huge radius. Either way, we’ve got a nearly front row seat and will learn a lot from this.
We found out about the possible imminent explosion of Betelgeuse some years ago. It could happen now, it could happen 1,000 years from now. Or has happened and we won’t see it until the light reaches us – as it may be, every so often when we go outside and look up at it, I like to coax it. “Exploooooode!” Of stellar events I would like to enjoy in my lifetime, a supernova is certainly high on my list.
So if I read the article correctly, increased manmade CO2 on Earth is causing Betelgeuse to go supernova?
McCool
So if I read the article correctly, increased manmade CO2 on Earth is causing Betelgeuse to go supernova?
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Earliest some
“roughly [ 550-650 light-years away ] 550-650 years in the future (parallax measurement is uncertain due to its size)!”
The universe seems to be a much more dynamic place then we thought:
– 100 catalogued stars disappeared since 1950s. Simply cannot be seen anymore even with the improved tools that we have
https://www.sott.net/article/425992-100-previously-catalogued-stars-just-vanished
– 6 galaxies (!) changed from ‘quiet’ to quasars (!) within month…
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-09/uom-usc091819.php
“A team of astronomers observed six mild-mannered LINER galaxies suddenly and surprisingly transforming into ravenous quasars–home to the brightest of all active galactic nuclei. “
“I have loved the stars too fondly
to be fearful of the night.”
Galileo Galilei