Betelgeuse

[Vandaahl]

Meet Mu Cephei. Fuel scooping at 77 C, distance 3400 ls

Btw, tricky bastid it is. Got a bit carried away and ended up with too much fuel in the tank. Luckily I was able to empty it by jumping back and forth to the only close neighbor it has, before being able to make a 35 ly leap back. A DBX can do it, but only with an almost empty tank

 

[Kirk-Fu]

I'm no expert but it is my understanding that you don't want to be within 1000ly of a star going supernova. So whilst it would look rather spectacular me might find ourselves with some rather unique problems we are total unprepared for.

I presume you don't mean one going supernova right now, because we wouldn't even know about it for 1000 years. Supernovae won't affect much outside their home system, unless another one is right next door, but a hypernova from the likes of Eta Carinae would definitely be something for future generations to worry about. At least the ones on colony worlds. On Earth it would make for the appearance of a second sun in the sky for a few weeks, but otherwise be harmless. Or mostly harmless as we like to say around here.

 

[Cradle2Grave]

'Used to love the way Patrick Moore would say, "Betelgeuse".

 

[Chris M Fortune]

Just arrived there myself and having scanned all 4 planets I am just sitting here 21k ls out looking at it from afar.

heat getting to 63% to scan the closest in was a tad worrying but an awesome place.

 

[RMORTI]

Betelgeuse was one of my favorite stars for celestial navigation. I'm sure everyone is using GPS now, but back when I was navigating, we had to rely on celestial navigation to get around the oceans. The armpit of Orion, but when you are shooting celestial you do so at a time when the horizon is still visible. You know, out of 6,000 visible stars; there are only 58 stars which are specially tracked for celestial navigation and Alpha Orionis is one of them.

Over 30 years at sea, and I never grew tired of seeing Orion. If our sun were replaced with Betelgeuse, it would engulf Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Possibly out to Jupiter or the asteroid belt.

 

[Saool]

'Used to love the way Patrick Moore would say, "Betelgeuse".

I play Planetside 2 from time to time. When the Vanu got access to an upgraded version of the Orion LMG called the Betelgeuse, there was thread after thread about how to actually pronounce it.

I have always pronounced it wrong. But as I have pronounced it wrong since I was a child I can't change. I say: Bet-el-goose. However most people also mis-pronounce it Beetle juice. The correct pronunciation is Arabic and is Bet-el-gerz.

I was slightly happy that 'Bet-el-goose' found some traction on the forums however as people mophed it into the more appropriate 'Battle goose' (for the gun).

 

[Frank]

Is Betelgeuse going to go supernova soon? Beacuse that would be awesome.

I wonder what will happen in-game if the real Betelgeuse is seen to go boom in our lifetime? Perhaps it could be retconned as a Thargoid plot...

We should all park our spaceships close by to watch the spectacle. We could all join in singing the Ancient Betelgeuse Death Anthem "After this things can only get better".

 

[RMORTI]

Well, while it will go supernova; when that will happen is sheer speculation. If it did explode in our lifetime, the danger to SOL would be very small. Then again, for all that we know it could have gone supernova but we have yet to see it. Schrödinger's cat so to speak.

Antares is another supergiant, bigger than Betelgeuse. It is so massive that on the scale of a pool ball, Jupiter would not be visible to the naked eye and our sun would be a mere pixel in size. Antares was a symbol of the Egyptian goddess Selkit, daughter of RE and is often associated with the Scorpion. Antares has burned through all of its hydrogen and now is fusing heavier elements as it heads towards supernova.

 

[Flavio]

Is Betelgeuse going to go supernova soon? Beacuse that would be awesome.

I wonder what will happen in-game if the real Betelgeuse is seen to go boom in our lifetime? Perhaps it could be retconned as a Thargoid plot...

As far as I understand it, according to the lore it has already gone nova but looking at it, it may not have started yet or it could be in the expansion stage - maybe one of the devs could clarify.

 

[MartinG]

I have always pronounced it wrong. But as I have pronounced it wrong since I was a child I can't change. I say: Bet-el-goose. However most people also mis-pronounce it Beetle juice. The correct pronunciation is Arabic and is Bet-el-gerz.

As there is no consensus as to the pronunciation, one cannot honestly claim that one pronunciation is right and another wrong, especially as the etymology of the first syllable is disputed (Wikipedia goes into some detail), although, for the record, “Bet-el-gerz” is not even close to any of the Arabic names the star might have. Further complicating the issue is the fact that in Arabic, ‘g’ (as in ‘goose’) and ‘j’ (as in ‘juice’) are just two variant pronunciations of the same consonant.

I hope it’s now all as clear as the atmosphere of Venus

 

[rightsideupsidedown]

I've received pictures from the inside of the star from a rather reliable contact who just so happens to be a space monkey partially constructed from molten lava. He actually advised me to remove this stop from my delivery route.

Spoiler

Come on in, just finished redecorating!