Betelgeuse a good candidate for going supernova in the next century

CMDR Charybdis

CMDR Charybdis
So this popped up on my news feed this morning and I thought I'd share.

A recent paper submitted for review has claimed that Betelgeuse is in its late stage carbon fusion cycle and is a good candidate for shortly (on astronomical timescales) going supernova. The last recorded such event being in 1604. Betelgeuse observations over the past 50 years have shown considerable semi-periodic fluctuations for this red supergiant. We may well get to see a bright supernova in our sky within our lifetime as we are talking about decades rather than millenia.

The star is around 600Ly away so it may already have gone, and the light has yet to reach us. More info and an accessible explanation on Dr Becky's YouTube channel.

Please take care when posting as repeated mention of Betelgeuse may lead to unexpected complications in your afterlife.


Preprint paper on Arxiv: The evolutionary stage of Betelgeuse inferred from its pulsation periods (Hideyuki Saio et al.)
 

Navigare Necesse Est

Navigare Necesse Est
The arabic name is yad (hand) al-gauza (giant f.). So Yadalgauz. But: the "y" carries two dots under the letter and the "b" just looks the same but only carries one dot under the letter (which really looks like "i" but with the dot(s) not above the trunk but under it.
So someone ran out of ink or so some day and that's why the "y" turned into a "b" and we call it Badalgauz today - with a couple minor changes.
 

Leadfoot

Leadfoot
I see those videos pop up on YouTube every 6 months. One of them actually had a live feed. Turns out it was just repeating the same loop every 30 minutes.

I'm not going to sit and stare at the YouTube channel because no one really knows when it's going to pop.

When I see that really bright shiny star in the sky where the sun isn't, then we will know it has popped.
 
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Factabulous

Factabulous
HappyMoonMonkey said:
Having this as an in game event would be amazing.
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Maybe they have - best get there and prepare yourself!

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Cmdr Snuffler

Cmdr Snuffler
They've been debating this topic for years and years. Could be tomorrow, could be in a thousand years. It could have already gone super-nova, but the light hasn't reached us yet. We just don't know.
 

HappyMoonMonkey

HappyMoonMonkey
It doesn't really matter whether there's great science involved. We have 1000 years until elite and in theory 1 star in the galaxy goes supernova every 50 years. So conceivably 1 could go supernova nearish the bubble within the timeframe of the game. Doesn't actually have to be Betelgeuse though.
 

Arindor

Arindor
It'll be epic for those that are around when it happens.

If it went nova today, then earth will see it in ~600 years time. If we see it today, then it happened ~600 years ago. :)
 

Darth Ender

D
HappyMoonMonkey said:
Having this as an in game event would be amazing.
Click to expand...

even if you could hold your breath for an infinite amount of time, i wouldn't hold your breath on that.

this topic comes up yearly. also, if they won't do active black holes, it's unlikely they will do an active anything else impacting the stellar forge
 

EdzUp

EdzUp
Seeing as currently the only data we can get is distant telescopes and measurements how do we know nebula are not obscuring the result after all 600ly is a vast distance to guess.
 

Fnord Velkor

Fnord Velkor
EdzUp said:
Seeing as currently the only data we can get is distant telescopes and measurements how do we know nebula are not obscuring the result after all 600ly is a vast distance to guess.
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Because if there was anything in the way we would have detected that. (Remember IR 'scopes can image things through obscuring dust clouds.) The more salient point is that we know there is nothing obscuring it 'cos we can see it (with the naked eye even).
 

EdzUp

EdzUp
Fnord Velkor said:
Because if there was anything in the way we would have detected that. (Remember IR 'scopes can image things through obscuring dust clouds.) The more salient point is that we know there is nothing obscuring it 'cos we can see it (with the naked eye even).
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Astronomers have discovered what caused Betelgeuse's dimming in 2019 | BBC Sky at Night Magazine

Three years ago, observers watched as red giant star Betelgeuse dimmed, then brightened. Now astronomers say they've discovered why.
www.skyatnightmagazine.com

Just going with the other mass supernovae crowd which said its imminent, we cannot say if its gone nova, is going to go in the next year or thousands of years. With a timeframe like that a bit early to be jumping on the its gonna blow train.
 

Fnord Velkor

Fnord Velkor
EdzUp said:
... we cannot say if its gone nova, ...
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You see this is the trouble when people try to pick up on things. A star can "go nova" many times (there are recurrent nova stars), Betelgeuse has possibly had nova events (producing the "shells" that surround it) - the term nova refers to the temporary brightening of a star, brightening rapidly and then slowly reducing back in luminosity.

Not enough is known to establish any correlation between stellar changes and the onset of a supernova event, although in the case of supergiants (like Betelgeuse) the expected tell-tale would be when it starts fusing iron (well, iron fusion can't produce energy - look up "Alpha process" to understand), hence the current speculation about the star's pulsing perhaps indicating that this is the situation.

I am only an amateur astronomer, not an astrophysicist so I can only pass on what I think these people are hanging their hats on.
 
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