[tlb]

For scale, our Sun is the pixel sized dot on the lower left side. When Betelgeuse goes nova, we won't have night again for weeks at least. And this could already have occurred anytime in the last six centuries and we wouldn't yet realize it.

[Ken522]

Thanks for the size-comparison graphic, tlb. We look at the sun all day long without realizing things like this ...

[RayChuang88]

One of the BIG concerns is that both Betelgeuse and Antares--both just over 600 light years away from our Sun--may have gone supernova and we don't know it yet. But if it's a supernova explosion, our Solar System could be showered with a big blast of X-ray and other radiation, which could be lethal to life on the Earth's surface and possibly a couple of hundred feet beneath the ocean surface. In short, it could set back the evolution of life on Earth back to beginning of the Paleozoic era, when only simple multicellular lifeforms existed!

[cripplecreek]

Everything is bigger in VY Canis Majoris.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks tlb.