Posted on 06/09/2009 9:46:50 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A massive bright reddish star in the Orion constellation has mysteriously shrunk by over 15 percent in the last 15 years and astronomers have not yet determined why, according to a study released Tuesday.
Betelgeuse, considered a supergiant star, is so large that it would reach to Jupiter's orbit in our solar system. But at a radius of about five astronomical units, the star has shrunk in size since 1993 by a distance equivalent to Venus's orbit.
"To see this change is very striking," University of California, Berkley professor Charles Townes, who whon the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics for inventing the laser, said in a statement.
"We will be watching it carefully over the next few years to see if it will keep contracting or will go back up in size."
According to Townes, the star's size diminished "smoothly, but faster as the years progressed."
The findings were presented Tuesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California, and were based on readings collected at UC Berkeley's Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI) atop Mount Wilson in Southern California.
Edward Wishnow, a UC Berkeley research physicist who worked with Townes on the study, said the researchers did not know why the star was shrinking.
"Considering all that we know about galaxies and the distant universe, there are still lots of things we don't know about stars, including what happens as red giants near the ends of their lives," Wishnow said.
Red supergiant stars are suspected to explode into type-II supernovas, cosmic explosions due to a massive star's internal collapse.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Betelgeuse, a massive bright reddish star in the Orion constellation, seen here by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, has mysteriously shrunk by over 15 percent in the last 15 years and astronomers have not yet determined why, according to a study released Tuesday. (AFP/NASA/File)
Algore would say cow farts and “global warming” is causing it. He’s weird.
SUVs on planets orbiting Betelgeuse are causing this.
supernova - should be a good show
Ummm, yes.
Signs in the heavens . . .
in the same era Israel returned to the Holy Land and became a nation again in a day as predicted . . .
Who’d a thunk.
/s
Old age comes to all of us. Maybe Betelgeuse needs Viagra....
I see a grant for $ 6 trillion dollars to educate the rest of the species in the constellation that it’s our fault.
Just hope none of the poles are pointed at us when it blows. Gamma rays are only good for David Banner.
It’s running out of geuse.
"I hate it when that happens"
10 posts and no pics of a shrinking Michael Keaton. :-}
I need rest (Hey, wait! I am on vacation!)
Old News... This happened 600 years ago...
However, we all may be dead tomorrow...
Film at 11
We need a tax increase because this is happening!
And at 640 light years away, it could have already done it, or it could be a couple of thousand years off yet.
BTW,
AT post #618
here
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2182204/posts?page=622#622
is a short doc about France likely to disclose by Friday that there ARE ET’s running around loose on earth . . .
Then apologize to the star for America looking at it in the first place....
Compared to our Sun, Betelgeuse is the size of a basketball while our Sol is the size of a poppy seed.
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