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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 ..."

4 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. I also heard... by Itninja · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...on very good authority that, in two weeks, Mars will appears as big as the MOON in the night sky!!

    I swear I have assuage my Mom's fear about that one every year. I would just send her to Snopes. But the copious pop-under ads, malware, etc. makes me think I would be causing more problems that I would solve.... "No Mom. You cannot make win a free XBox by punching that monkey...". But I digress.

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  2. Re:Who cares? by volsung · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Super-Kamiokande would light up like Christmas from a supernova only 600 light years from Earth. (Hopefully they still have a trigger configured to save such data, despite being used now as a target for the T2K experiment.) Super-K is 10x larger than Kamiokande-II and Kamiokande-II was able to detect 11 events from a supernova that was 250x further away than Betelgeuse. Granted, not all supernova have the same intensity, but still, I think we'd have a pretty good view from here.

  3. Yeah saw this one yesterday by AbRASiON · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The rumour was it will occur in the next few weeks, similar to SN 1054 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054

    [quote]SN 1054 (Crab Supernova) was a supernova that was widely seen on Earth in the year 1054. It was recorded by Chinese, Japanese, Native Americans, and Persian/Arab astronomers as being bright enough to see in daylight for 23 days and was visible in the night sky for 653 days.[1][2][3] The progenitor star was located in the Milky Way galaxy at a distance of 6,300 light years and exploded as a core-collapse supernova.[/quote]

  4. Re:Why is it? by John+Hasler · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ever considered that it might not be the same people doing both?

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