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If there’s one star in the sky people know about, it’s Betelgeuse.* Marking the right shoulder of the hunter Orion—remember, he’s facing us, so it’s on our left—this orange-red star is one of the brightest in the night sky. It’s been studied for as long as we’ve had telescopes, yet for all our advanced technology and knowhow, details about it are maddeningly vague. We don’t even have a good determination of how far away it is! Still, there’s a lot we do know: It’s a red supergiant, a star that started out life already a lot bigger, more massive, and...

Explanation: Is the night sky darkest in the direction opposite the Sun? No. In fact, a rarely discernable faint glow known as the gegenschein (German for "counter glow") can be seen 180 degrees around from the Sun in an extremely dark sky. The gegenschein is sunlight back-scattered off small interplanetary dust particles. These dust particles are millimeter sized splinters from asteroids and orbit in the ecliptic plane of the planets. Pictured above from last year is one of the more spectacular pictures of the gegenschein yet taken. Here a deep exposure of an extremely dark sky over Las Campanas Observatory...

Explanation: Begirt with many a blazing star, Orion, the Hunter, is one of the most easily recognizable constellations. In this night skyscape from January 15, the hunter's stars rise in the northern hemisphere's winter sky, framed by bare trees and bounded below by terrestrial lights around Lough Eske (Lake of Fish) in County Donegal, Ireland. Red giant star Betelgeuse is striking in yellowish hues at Orion's shoulder above and left of center. Rivaling the bright red giant, Rigel, a blue supergiant star holds the opposing position near Orion's foot. Of course, the sword of Orion hangs from the hunter's three...

Explanation: An expansive nebula of dust is seen to surround red supergiant star Betegeuse in this remarkable high resolution composite, an infrared VLT image from the European Southern Observatory. Betelgeuse itself is outlined by the small, central red circle. If found in our own solar system its diameter would almost encompass the orbit of Jupiter. But the larger envelope of circumstellar dust extends some 60 billion kilometers into space, equivalent to about 400 times the Earth-Sun distance. The dust is likely formed as the swollen atmosphere of the supergiant sheds material into space, a final phase in the evolution of...

ESO/L.CalcadaThe supergiant star Betelgeuse has a vast plume of gas almost as large as our Solar System and a gigantic bubble boiling on its surface, shown in this artist's impression. The super-giant red star Betelgeuse in Orion’s nebula is predicted to cataclysmically explode, and the impending supernova may even reach Earth -- someday. But will it happen by 2012, as recent news reports suggest? Probably not, experts told FoxNews.com. While the second biggest star in the universe is strangely losing mass -- and has already become a red giant, meaning it is destined to explode and become a supernova --...

>b?Betelgeuse Resolved Explanation: The sharpest image ever of Betelgeuse shows a mammoth star that is slowly evaporating. Betelgeuse (sounds a lot like "beetle juice"), also known as Alpha Orionis, is one of the largest and brightest stars known. The star is a familiar orange fixture easily visible to the unaided eye toward the constellation of Orion. The above recent image from the Very Large Telescope in Chile resolves not only the face of Betelgeuse, but a large and previously unknown plume of surrounding gas. This plume gives fresh indications of how the massive star is shedding mass as it nears...

The Earth could soon have a second sun, at least for a week or two. The cosmic phenomenon will happen when one of the brightest stars in the night sky explodes into a supernova. And, according to a report yesterday, the most stunning light show in the planet’s history could happen as soon as this year. Earth will undoubtedly have a front row seat when the dying red supergiant star Betelgeuse finally blows itself into oblivion. The explosion will be so bright that even though the star in the Orion constellation is 640 light-years away, it will still turn night...

I was going to wait to write about this, but I’m getting a lot of emails about it, so I’ll say something now, and followup when I get more information. The story: BABloggee Alereon (and many others) sent me to an interesting site: Life After the Oil Crash Forum — a forum that apparently has a lot of doomsday-type scuttlebutt posted to it. An anonymous poster there says he has heard that the star Betelgeuse is about to go supernova, maybe as soon as a few weeks: I was talking to my son last week (he works on Mauna Kea),...

A bright star may soon explode in a supernova, according to data released by U.C. Berkeley researchers Tuesday. The red giant Betelgeuse, once so large it would reach out to Jupiter's orbit if placed in our own solar system, has shrunk by 15 percent over the past decade in a half, although it's just as bright as it's ever been. "To see this change is very striking," said retired Berkeley physics professor Charles Townes, who won the 1964 Nobel Prize for inventing the laser. "We will be watching it carefully over the next few years to see if it will...

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...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 March 21 Stars and Planets in the Halo of the Moon Credit & Copyright: Lauri Kangas Explanation: Photographed on March 13th from Caledon, Ontario, Canada, a bright Moon was surrounded by this lovely halo. Planet Jupiter and stars Procyon, Castor, and Pollux also appear within the circle of lunar light. Castor and Pollux, twins in Greek Mythology, are appropriately bright stars of the constellation Gemini while Procyon...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 7 Orion on Film Credit & Copyright: Matthew Spinelli Explanation: Orion, the Hunter, is one of the most easily recognizable constellations in planet Earth's night sky. But Orion's stars and nebulae don't look quite as colorful to the eye as they do in this lovely photograph, taken last month from Vekol Ranch south of Phoenix, Arizona, USA. The celestial scene was recorded in a five minute...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 December 25 Orion Rising Credit & Copyright: Jimmy Westlake (Colorado Mountain College) Explanation: Orion always comes up sideways ... and was caught in the act earlier this month by astronomer Jimmy Westlake, stargazing eastward over the Rocky Mountains north of Leadville, Colorado, USA. To make this gorgeous image, Westlake placed his camera on a tripod for two exposures. The first lasted for 18 minutes allowing the stars...