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Betelgeuse To Blow Up Soon — Or Not
rubycodez writes "A wave of 2012-related hoopla has hit the internet about the star that makes the 'right shoulder' of Orion the hunter: Betelgeuse. Astronomer Phil Plait once again puts rumors to rest. The star will indeed explode as a type II supernova, and when it does it will be brighter than Venus when viewed from Earth, though not as bright as the full moon. It will be visible in the night sky for weeks, and could be visible in the day sky for a short time. But that event could happen today or 100,000 years from now, or as much as a million years from now. Since Betelgeuse is over 600 light-years away, its violent death will not harm Earth in any way, but will definitely provide a huge bonanza of scientific information about supernovae. As geeks, we can only hope the core of Betelgeuse undergoes catastrophic failure in our lifetime."
What they're saying is it might have blown up around 600 years ago... or not
it's under construction
Just say its name three times and it'll all be under control.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
During a type II supernova most of the iron stays in the core and isn't cast off.
As geeks, we can only hope the core of Betelgeuse undergoes catastrophic failure in our lifetime.
I dunno. Betelgeuse staying the way it is suits me pretty good. 1). Orion is the most recognizable constellation there is. It's supposed to be a man with outstretched arms, and well, it looks like one -- with his belt, and the 4 brightest stars. Yeah, they're his shoulders and knees, but so what 2). Betelgeuse is a bight star, and it's noticeably red. So it's a good example of star colors. Right next to Aldebaran, Antares, and Sirius, nearby and also red and blue (blue-white) 3). If it blows tomorrow, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy will soon be confusing. Well, more so. And that's a great geek book. Basically, the only people left out seriously will be kids. But seriously, Betelgeuse, is an important tool for teaching children. Not like there's much we can do about it.
The question is, can I make money selling Betelgeuse supernova insurance to the general public?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Driving home one evening, someone said we should hold a party for the death of Betelgeuse, and invite Michael Keaton. My girlfriend responded "Why? Because he's a dying star too?"
There is a mistake in thinking like this. You assume an absolute version of time. Relativity shows us that this is not the case. There is no universal time clock, and since nothing can be transmitted faster than light, not even information (barring crazy stuff like quantum entanglement) - it only matters when we observe it. Like the uncertainty principle, all common thinking tells is is that the atom must have a definite position and velocity - but it doesn't because we can't measure it. Same applies here, we can't measure things until the information reaches us, so that is when it happens.
I don't know about Ford Perfect, but Ford Prefect may well have an issue with this.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Calm down, he's obviously talking about his own inertial reference frame. And within his frame, he's correct.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
We can't measure things until the information reaches us, so that is when it happens.
I think you are misunderstanding relativity, or perhaps just miscommunicating it.
Example: Some cosmic microwave background radiation from the early universe is just reaching Earth today. That doesn't mean that the universe is young "now".
My understanding of relativity is that you can still use distance = speed * time to figure out when an event occurred in your reference frame. You just have to give up the notion that everyone else will agree with you.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
You can run a perfectly valid Newtonian clock-syncing algorithm when all parties are moving relative to each other at much less than the speed of light. That's the case here.
For any speed less than c, you preserve the order of events, and as soon as you say what the distance is, you're committed to talking about a fixed elapsed time because the speed of light is invariant.
The statements "Betelgeuse is 600 light years away" and "We're seeing it as it was 600 years ago" are equally valid. They're both approximately true for anyone who's moving slowly relative to us and Betelgeuse.
Someone in a relativistic starship who's racing the light from the supernova will report a shorter time, because she's just behind the light, and will truthfully report a shorter distance, equal to the (invariant) speed of light times the (her frame) measured time.
It is extremely unlikely that Betelgeuse will produce a gamma-ray burst. The current thinking is that supernovae only produce gamma-ray bursts in stars that have been stripped of their hydrogen envelopes. Betelgeuse still has most of its hydrogen, and there is not enough time to lose it before the supernova is likely to happen. Even if Betelgeuse does produce a gamma-ray burst the bursts occur along the rotation axis of the star, and Betelgeuse's rotation axis is not pointed towards us. Fortunately, we do not have to worry about a gamma-ray burst from Betelgeuse, because it is close enough that such a burst would be rather nasty for us.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
As geeks, we can only hope the core of Betelgeuse undergoes catastrophic failure in our lifetime.
My home plant orbits Betelgeuse, you insensitive clod!