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Rumor of Betelgeuse's Death Greatly Exaggerated

Posted by kdawson on from the holding-out-for-twenty-twelve dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "A rumor is spreading on the Net like wildfire that the red supergiant star Betelgeuse is about to explode in a supernova. This rumor is almost certainly not true. First, it's posted on a doomsday forum. Second, it's three times removed from the source, and is anonymous at each step. Third, the evidence is shaky at best. Plus, even if true, the supernova is too far away to hurt us. But other than that ..."

15 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Who cares? by HFXPro · · Score: 4, Informative

    No. For you it occurs tomorrow. Relativity is awesome.

    --
    Reserved Word.
  2. News? by voodoosteve · · Score: 2, Informative

    What's new here? It's long been known that Betelgeuse is a massive post main sequence star and will explode as a supernova in the (astronomical) near future.

    1. Re:News? by shadowbearer · · Score: 3, Informative

        What's new is that the doomsday tomorrow nuts have something else to latch on to, since 2012 has been thoroughly debunked.

        Of course it is possible that it already has gone supernova, and that the light and hard gamma front will reach us tomorrow morning.

        Fortunately it's far enough away that the only people who are going to notice anything other than a bright light in the sky are gamma ray astronomers, and astronomers who work on supernova theory.

        It'll be a great day for astronomers when it does go, however, a supernova that close and that thoroughly studied will give us a lot of hard information on supernova. For example, IIRC Betelgeuse was the one of the first stars to actually have it's angular diameter measured (1921) and surface imaged using interferometry.

        I'm old enough to remember when they imaged it's surface, at the time it was an incredible achievement.

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    2. Re:News? by voodoosteve · · Score: 2, Informative

      If Betelgeuse does go supernova, it will definitely be a naked eye object. For example, the Crab supernova was recorded by Chinese astronomers who noted a bright object in the sky during the day.

  3. Re:Who cares? by mog007 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Betelgeuse isn't millions of light-years away from Earth. It's in our Galaxy, about 600 light years away.

    --
    Learn something new.
  4. Re:Doomsday forum by NecroPuppy · · Score: 2, Informative

    They have to have some place to share tips on the best places to buy seed vaults, share bunker plans, and learn the proper use of the crowbar vis-a-vis ventilation access.

    --
    I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
  5. Re:Who cares? by Locke2005 · · Score: 4, Informative

    A supernova can only effect us if it is within 25 light years of us. Betelgeuse is much farther away than that; new estimates say 640 light years. At any rate, it is way beyond the point at which I give a flying fuck because it doesn't effect me one whit. However, it may be really upsetting to Zaphod Beeblebrox!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  6. in other important astronomy news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    In other news, the M1 nebula is NOT... I repeat, *not* about to disappear.

    Bernard's Star is also NOT going nova this week. Probably not next week either.

    Also, do not panic. Neptune is quite stable in its orbit and is NOT about to collide with Jupiter, say astronomers. Repeat, it *will not* collide.

  7. Re:Who cares? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Informative

    Neutrinos were detected along with photons from the 1987 supernova. I expected that this would be the same, except closer and brighter.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  8. Re:Of course it is. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Edelweiss is actually pronounced "Aydel-vice"

  9. Spreading like wildfire? by mmcxii · · Score: 4, Informative

    When I Googled "I was talking to my son last week (he works on Mauna Kea), and he mentioned some new observations" to see how far this had spread it came up with a glorious 5 hits. That's spreading like wildfire?

  10. Re:What are the odds? by Max+Threshold · · Score: 4, Informative

    The average galaxy experiences a supernova roughly once every hundred years. Yes, we have seen some; there was one in a neighboring galaxy in 1987. What's really whack is that there are about 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Using the estimate of one supernova per galaxy per century, this works out to like thirty supernova every second! Shit's blowin' up like crazy!

  11. Re:Who cares? by forand · · Score: 4, Informative

    Informative? Really? For the difference between 495 light years and 600 light years? Do I get modded 'informative' for correcting it to 640 ± 140 light years?

  12. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Har har. You're hilarious.

    NOT!

  13. Re:Who cares? by ByteSlicer · · Score: 2, Informative

    In general relativity time is relative. Only causality (the order of events) is absolute. While GR breaks down on a quantum scale, that doesn't mean it's not correct (i.e. experiments match theory to a very high degree) on a macro scale. Time Dilation is a real, measurable effect. A quantum theory of everything would have behave like GR on macro scales for it to match our observations of the universe.