Posted on 12/31/2019 10:26:42 AM PST by jonatron
When you take a look at the stars in the night sky, they generally appear the same regardless of time. Only a small number of stars ever appear to change on human timescales, as most stars burn through their fuel very stably, with almost no variation in their continuous brightness. The few stars that do appear to change are either intrinsically variable, members of multi-star systems, or go through an enormous evolutionary change.
When very massive stars get close to the end of their lives, they start varying by tremendous amounts, and do so with significant irregularity. At a critical moment, most of these stars will run out of the nuclear fuel holding up their cores against collapse, and the resulting implosion leads to a runaway cataclysm: a core-collapse supernova. Could Betelgeuse, whose variability intensified in a novel way over the last few days, be about to explode? Here's what astronomers know so far.
The last time our species witnessed a supernova from within our own galaxy with the naked human eye, the year was 1604. A new point of light in the sky suddenly appeared, brightened, and briefly outshone every single star before slowly fading away. This wasn't the first such event, as prior supernovae had illuminated Earth's skies like this in 1572, 1054, and 1006, among others.
But all of those supernovae occurred from stars that were thousands of light-years away, with Kepler's 1604 explosion being traced back to a stellar remnant located some 20,000 light-years across the Milky Way. Of all the stars we see in the night sky, one bright member stands out as the most fascinating possibility as our galaxy's next supernova: Betelgeuse, one of our sky's 10 brightest stars, located a mere 640 light-years away.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
It all means that eventually we are all going to die.
Space/Time is kinda warped that way.
Always living in the past, even if it is just a millisecond or two.
My take on it too, light years ago.
“Could Betelgeuse, whose variability intensified in a novel way over the last few days, be about to explode?”
I don’t know who this Betelgeuse guy is, but if he has dirt on the Clinton’s, then yes he will likely explode.
But it will be ruled suicide.
Betelgeuse, one of our sky’s 10 brightest stars, located a mere 640 light-years away.
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If Betelgeuse has gone supernova, you want it to be far far away. The kill zone for a supernova is about 25 to 50 light-years in diameter.
I’ll bet there is a Bolshie proposing a space mission to give us advanced warning.
640 years to act and yet the World’s Governments stood by and did nothing.
We need to immediately increase local and worldwide taxes and payments to the UN so as to fund both pre and post Betelgeussian supernova studies and committees for the propagation of Interstellar healing.
Music stars and promoters must start planning Betelgeuseian-Aid concerts. Where’s Linda Ronstead? STING, Bono, Sprinsteen? Will.i.am?
The poor Betelgeuseians are owed aid and reparations.
Our best and brightest must ensure a smooth transfer of governmental oversight and disaster management to ensure the Betelgeuseians (or whatever they call themselves) are provided with sufficient fluids and nourishment until they may again provide for themselves.
The earth must ensurThe future of Betelgeuse is Socialism!
Who dares to sit while Betelgeuse burns and then freezes?
so if Betelgeuse goes supernova, will we then say that Orion has blown out his shoulder?
Inquiring minds want to know.
WOW Billy Mays died over ten years ago.
I thought when a star exploded the radiation goes in all directions but I could be wrong.
Alfvén postulated that the universe has always existed [10][11] due to causality arguments and the rejection of ex nihilo models, such as the Big Bang, as a stealth form of creationism.[12][13]Smaller matter/antimatter collisions at the boundaries account for the redshift evidence of an expanding universe? That's really out there as a concept. See what I did there?
Bettelguise has been off gasing for years and when it does go supernova it will light up the sky for months.
Yeah, a long time ago.
Jay Leno had him pimping Obama one night just before the election. Him and somebody else pimping Obama and McCain.
As if it was funny, the national nightmare about to begin.
I hope so. We must make Greta happy, lest she be mad at us.
How can you be in two places at once when you’re not anywhere at all?
Meh
Happy New Year! :)
All I care about is how this is going to affect Man In The Moon Marigolds.
/you’re old if you get that
:D
Climate change
When it happens, some blogger will post “explosive” a month after it’s general knowledge.
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