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 ...
There will be signs in the heavens.....
ping
639 years away, anyway.
JJ61
What is the distance to Betelgeuse?
how long does a explosion take? Is it instantanious or is it a slow squeeze????
Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!!!!!!
I don’t know how long. I was wondering how long ago all this occurred, something most scientist always fail to point out. Another FReeper says 639 light years away, meaning this happened over 639 years ago. Whatever happened has been over a long time and to start worrying about it now is a little bit to late and nothing can be done anyway:)
I've seen some really wild calculations based on expansion theory that put it as far as 1000LY away.
We really don't 'know'.
Ok, I start wearing sunscreen tomorrow.
winner!
Way to go, “Dad”.
Now you’ve doomed us all.
[what’s the matter? you didn’t have any Gremlins to feed after midnight?].....:))
It probably saw Helen Thomas naked.
Oh noes!! Betelgeuse needs a bailout!
/s
Basically, like all the other unprovable theories these scientists have concoted, this observation flies in the face of typical evolutionary style thinking.
The evolutionaries state that a star similar to our sun is in its early to middle stages of existence. As the star loses its hydrogen energy source in the nuclear fusion process, it begins to take on helium. When the helium becomes a substantial by-product, the star becomes a red giant. When the red giant runs out of hydrogen, the star will explode, leaving a white dwarf, that in turn may later become a black hole.
That’s the theory, anyway. This observation seems to make the theory bogus.
Could Algore’s next “great cause” be “Global Shrinkage”? I thought he had that one covered already...
How did the Seinfeld people miss the picture of George complaining about shrinkage?
“The distance to Betelgeuse is not known with precision but if this is assumed to be 640 light years, the star’s diameter would be about 950 to 1000 times that of the Sun. Betelgeuse has a color index (B-V) of 1.86 and is thought to have a mass of about 20 solar masses.[3]
It is likely that Betelgeuse will become a supernova.[3][19] Considering its size and age of 8.5 million years – old for its size class – it may explode within the next thousand years—if it hasn’t already.[19] Since its rotational axis is not toward the Earth, Betelgeuse’s supernova would NOT cause a gamma ray burst in the direction of Earth large enough to damage its ecosystem even from a relatively close proximity of 640 light years.[19]
A Betelgeuse supernova could easily outshine the Moon in the night sky.[19] It will likely be the brightest supernova in recorded Human history, easily outshining SN 1006. After it explodes, it will likely linger for several months, being visible in the daytime sky and lighting up nighttime skies in the Solar System for a long time, after which the “right shoulder” of Orion will disappear forever.”
>>>I see a grant for $ 6 trillion dollars to educate the rest of the species in the constellation that it’s our fault.
That or some Biblical non-sequitor seems to be becoming the standard FR reply to ANY science story. Personally if this phenomenon continues I want and expect the science community to study the heck out of it and determine if it does or does not portend the death of the star. Absent interstellar flight we would never get a better or cheaper view of such a rare occurrence.
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