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Betelgeuse .... boomio?

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chrismpw said:
I have 1* thing on my bucket list- I want to be looking at the night sky when Betelgeuse goes supernova. (*since a pink floyd reunion is off the cards). Betelgeuse appears as a bright orange point in the top left of the orion constellation.

600 light years away its far enough away that we're safe, although I'm sure the Internet, flat earthers and Mail, Express and that other paper readers, will be whipped up into a frenzy of fear by clickbait. I was told years ago that betelgeuse couch achieve supernova anytime in the next hundred thousand years. However a recent study suggests that the supernova may have already happened, and we're just waiting for the light of that cataclysm to reach us. This is nothing to do with the great dimming observed a couple of years ago (coinciding with a nation apparently believing Boris Johnson during covid).

The recent study is based on the levels of carbon left in the star. Recent measurements suggest betelgeuse has very little carbon left in its core and computer models for that level of carbon for that size star suggest that its end is imminent.... which in the scale of an astrophysicist or geologist means any time in the next 10-100 years.

Normal stars in middle age release energy by fusing hydrogen to helium. When all the H is used up then slightly less energy is emitted as the core starts converts helium into carbon. After the helium has been used up a star the size of betelgeuse will release energy by fusing its carbon into (as i recall) silicon. After the carbon is used up, as has been observed, it's pretty much end game. Betelgeuse is simply not hot enough or big enough to fuse silicon into iron and sustain itself.

What we'll see is a star bright enough to be seen in the daytime sky, for a short while. What will likely be left behind is a neutron star, slowly cooling to the inevitable heat death of the universe. And by then Everton might have replaced Richarleson.
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Don’t believe you.
 
ste d' indica said:
I'm assuming this cataclysmic event will reduce the earth to a scorched husk, and will therefore take place on the day of our first match at the dock.
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I read once that if a supernova happened within 100 light years then life would be obliterated on earth .... THAT'S an idea of the magnitude of the energy outpouring there'd be.

Fortunately for us there are no stars within that range that are big enough to go supernova.
 
PITA said:
Don’t believe you.
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Up to you. It wasnt my study, and it is only a single study thats just been released. Not my area of expertise... but it is the area of expertise of the people who dud the work. Damn it Jim I'm a geologist not an astrophysicist!
 
chrismpw said:
I read once that if a supernova happened within 100 light years then life would be obliterated on earth .... THAT'S an idea of the magnitude of the energy outpouring there'd be.

Fortunately for us there are no stars within that range that are big enough to go supernova.
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Did those physicists factor the 'Everton constant' into their equations though?
 

Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball, in a Betelgeuse Supernova in the Skiiiiiiiiiiyyyyyyye

Keep it mate.
 


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