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Dying Star Betelgeuse Spews Fiery Nebula
astroengine writes "Betelgeuse is dying a nasty death. The star is in the final, violent stages of its life, shedding vast amounts of stellar material into space as it quickly approaches a supernova demise. But now, with the help of the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, Betelgeuse's extended nebula has come to light. Comprised of silica and alumina dust, ESO astronomers have been able to image the nebula in infrared wavelengths for the first time. This is the most detailed view we've ever had of the imminent death of a titanic red supergiant star."
Can we expect Betelgeuse to go supernova in our lifetimes?
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I've always loved looking at the stars, and a sky without Orion will be somewhat diminished. But, since this is going to happen anyway, I'd really like to see a spectacular supernova in my lifetime!
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What's wrong with Slashdot editing these days? This happened 640 years ago. And you're only posting now?
Have gnu, will travel.
The ESO astronomers are made of silica and alumina dust?
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
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I'm amazed that humans are able to see extra-terrestrial events with such detail.
What's even crazier is that we know more about outer space than we do about our oceans.
Oh, and, maybe...first post?
I truly hate this statement. We DO NOT understand outer space more than our oceans.
We don't understand outer space enough to ask the proper questions. People are making assumptions that planets outside of our solar system are composed of 118 elements, and that is all. (Just another hunk of rock/gas)... This is a dumb assumption to make.
Our oceans are finite, so there are a finite number of questions to ask. Space, to our understanding, is infinite. Therefore, we will never understand outer space as well as we can know our own oceans.
What will this mean to Ford Prefect's home planet?
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I'm amazed that humans are able to see extra-terrestrial events with such detail.
Ah, that's where you're mistaken. You have to read the article carefully. It says that the ESO astronomers are "comprised of silica and alumina dust." They're not human at all!
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So, Orion's BO is now so strong they can see it with a telescope. Pretty cool. He'd better watch out how high he holds that arm, otherwise he's going to blow out that shoulder joint.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
What's even crazier is that we know more about outer space than we do about our oceans.
How is knowledge quantified here?
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isn't the point that we DO know more about outer space than we do about our oceans (in terms of raw data available)
NOT
that we WILL know more about outer space than we can ever about our oceans at some unspecified point in the future as your argument concludes.
while your conclusion is probably correct it doesn't relate to the original statement.
Am I the only one who also read that as Beetlejuice? Man, first that show, and now this star is going out too? Bummer...
The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.
May I ask why it is a dumb assumption to make, that everything existing is composed of the matter we know? Many elements (like gold) are made in events like these: supernovas, as normal stellar fusion allows only elements up to iron to be synthesized within stars.
What do you suggest anything else is made of? Antimatter? Why? It's not impossible, but very improbable and on top of that it wouldn't change all that much except we'd better never get into direct contact with such material.
Also keep in mind that from the scientific point of view, anything we cannot observe is indistinguishable from not existing. That doesn't mean that unobservable object/thing/essence/whatever doesn't exist, but it makes no scientific sense to talk about it. If the object/thing/essence/whatever finally is observed, then we can talk. Our Universe is defined by what we can observe. So if there is something that is so far away that it hasn't reached us yet by electromagnetic radiation (basically, "what we can observe"), it doesn't exist in our universe.
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Since we know what the Stars are made from mainly Hydrogen gas, we can make a good guess that the planets going around those star will be made of since all the planet in our solar system is made of them. If you only see one thing out there in space its unique but you see two then a good chance it something common, that goes for stars, planets and the rest.
Ignore, it's another one of those stupid new age hippie bullshit statements.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
28 spam ACs posted in succession... distributed AC posting? That could make it painful to read at less than 1 (I usually read at -1).
What's even crazier is that we know more about outer space than we do about our oceans.
Wrong. We THINK we know more about space than our own oceans.
The reality of it is, almost everything we think we know about space is highly speculative theory based on very bad observations, and we regularly find out that our theories are not only wrong, but were so far from right that its mind blowing that anyone came up with them in the first place.
Most of our space knowledge, ESPECIALLY about how stars work is based entirely on someones imagination in inventing some formulas that appear to match reality ... sometimes ... occasionally even most of the time, but scientists regularly talk about 'how supernovea work' but we've only observed a VERY VERY small number of them in our entire history, and for all intents and purposes none with modern equipment. The ones we have observed ... we speculate on what the data actually means based on more theories. In short, most of our knowledge of the universe is imaginary crap we made up and shoehorned into looking like reality matches.
Until VERY recently, the entire world thought their couldn't possibly be life anywhere else in our solar system because none of the planets/moons matched what we KNEW was how life worked ... then we find out ... even here on Earth ... we have life that 'could not possibly exist' according to most people in the field.
Then all of the sudden someone realized ... hey ... you know what ... life as we know it might ... just maybe ... NOT be the ONLY WAY it can happen.
We may not know shit about our oceans in the grand scheme of things, but we know billions of times more about them than we do about space, regardless of what any theoretical physicist or astrophysicist tries to make you believe. Try to remember what theory means. And then add onto that what most scientists talking about space call theories are actually nothing more than completely untested and often unbased hypothesis on the idea, they haven't even made it to theory yet, even though thats what they call it.
We've assumed until the last couple of years that all live was carbon based, must have water, needs oxygen or carbon and some other highly reactive element, and a hole bunch of things ... then we go find something in a mine, miles underground, that completely proves every accepted theory of live wrong, overnight, yet we still pretend we have a clue.
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People are making assumptions that planets outside of our solar system are composed of 118 elements, and that is all. (Just another hunk of rock/gas)... This is a dumb assumption to make.
We've done spectroscopy on extrasolar planets and found that they have lines that match up with known elements and molecules (http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0702507 for example, but there's been quite a few more publications since then on the subject). Not a dumb assumption at all.
In fact, just about all the work that has been done on the spectra of objects outside of our immediate neighborhood lines up very, very nicely with the assumption that it's all made of the same stuff. Outside of the more extreme objects (neutron stars, black holes, and to a lesser extent, white dwarfs), everything is made of the elements up through uranium or so (with stuff below iron more common, and hydrogen by far the most common). All in line with theory.
There's dark matter, too, and it isn't completely crazy to say that it could clump up and form "planets," but that a bit unlikely - the fact that DM doesn't interact other than via gravity means there's no way for clumps of DM to stick together like normal matter can.
Yes, since the collapsing hrung destroyed it long before the supernovea will. His planet is already destroyed, the supernova won't do anything to whats left that matters to Ford, especially if he's stuck in another reality again.
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It's a good thing Ford Prefect left home.
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You have a bit of a point, but be very careful claiming that we found anything that "completely proves every accepted theory of live[sic] wrong, overnight" -- for there have been no such discoveries. For your statement to be true, the life would need to be truly extraordinary -- not using DNA and/or RNA, not using common energetic cycles, etc. I'm all ears to citations as to the contrary, but so far you're just way ahead of yourself. You have good intentions, but you know, hell is paved with those.
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Astrophysics has as tightly constructed empirical investigations as any laboratory science. See for example, http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item2326793/
That you find astrophysics unpersuasive is itself unpersuasive.
That life as we know it is carbon based and needs water and oxygen is far more than just "theory". So far, fact fits theory. Even extremophiles are carbon based. When and if the facts prove theory wrong, the theory is modified or discarded.
Science is always changing. That's how it works. If science didn't work, engineering wouldn't work and that computer you're typing on wouldn't exist.
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If that million-to-one remained constant, there would be a 1-in-10,000 chance of it happening in a 100-year span. However, as with "life expectancy" tables, the likelihood of the star's demise increase slightly with every passing year. Even worst-case, however, is probably 1-in-1,000 chance over a 100 year span... (Source: WAG)
Carbon dating is calibrated against tree ring and ice layer dates at the short end and other dating methods at the long end.
None of that will convince a young earth creationist, but sane skeptics are pretty much convinced. Changes in Carbon-14 would have to correspond to changes in other longer lived radioisotopes.
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The ESO instrument is the Very Large Telescope (VLT). The VLA (Very Large Array) is a radio telescope in New Mexico.
The entire second page is Score 0 comments, and this was the only one that wasn't spam. Replying just so that it's not lost amid the noise.
Stop right there... You're doing a Ken Ham, and I'd like you to read this
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