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Betelgeuse


Wjolcz

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4 hours ago, cubinator said:

Time enough for the lead scientists to send a text to their colleagues - "Go get your solar glasses. Now!"

Neutrino detectors are the ones that will give us precise timing on that. In fact, that's the only way we've been able to predict supernovas in the past.

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  • 1 year later...
1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Okay - now I'm waiting for the Webb data!  (They make a pretty good argument that Betelgeuse is interesting enough to warrant observation time... but I'm guessing there's a LOT of frustrated career-DM theorists who are claiming priority for looking way back into the way back).

 

Still - that's been one of the more interesting astronomy stories to follow; thanks for sharing!

 

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5 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I'm still holding out faint hope that it still might go supernova sometime within my lifetime, purely for selfish reasons.   But I'll be really be upset when it does happen, it'll be during the northern hemispheric winter. 

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4 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

So, when the super-mighty  flare (or the coming bigger explosion) highlights the Betelgeusian Kuiper and Oort bodies from below and maybe evaporates some of them, can we see this?

It would prove/disprove the Oort cloud existance at all.

I'm not sure we have that level of resolution.  After all, we're still detecting planets via EM spectrum changes as they transit the star.  Even Webb's 'imaging' of Wasp 96 b was inference rather than direct observation.

Webb Reveals Steamy Atmosphere of Distant Planet in Detail – Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond our Solar System (nasa.gov)

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3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm not sure we have that level of resolution.  After all, we're still detecting planets via EM spectrum changes as they transit the star.  Even Webb's 'imaging' of Wasp 96 b was inference rather than direct observation.

Webb Reveals Steamy Atmosphere of Distant Planet in Detail – Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond our Solar System (nasa.gov)

We actually can resolve Beetlejuice as a disc, with the VLT and ALMA.

Don't have links to papers right now, but when you search "Betelgeuse image VLT" or ".. ALMA" you'll find it :-)

 

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13 hours ago, Gargamel said:

I'm still holding out faint hope that it still might go supernova sometime within my lifetime, purely for selfish reasons.   But I'll be really be upset when it does happen, it'll be during the northern hemispheric winter. 

I’m confused. I thought you were in the northern hemisphere, and Orion (the constellation containing Betelgeuse) is a winter constellation? Or are you not wanting to get cooked by the blast of gamma rays and other radiation??

A bigger threat is probably the wave of cosmic radiation (heavy atomic nuclei) tharwill be following at subluminal speeds, but I’m not a cosmologist…

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40 minutes ago, Pixophir said:

We actually can resolve Beetlejuice as a disc, with the VLT and ALMA.

Even with the glare on top.

Spoiler

Betelgeuse_captured_by_ALMA.jpg

Wait...
WHAT is illuminating Betelgeuse to cause this glare???
It's something another... something big...

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2 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I’m confused. I thought you were in the northern hemisphere, and Orion (the constellation containing Betelgeuse) is a winter constellation? Or are you not wanting to get cooked by the blast of gamma rays and other radiation??

A bigger threat is probably the wave of cosmic radiation (heavy atomic nuclei) tharwill be following at subluminal speeds, but I’m not a cosmologist…

Yeah, I typo’d and meant to write summer.  

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6 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Yeah, I typo’d and meant to write summer.  

No typo. And no worries. When it blasts, it will any month be summer.

6 hours ago, Pixophir said:

A star is not a billiard ball and that spot is not a specular reflection.

I thought so before seeing this photo.

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  • 10 months later...
On 8/13/2022 at 7:57 AM, Gargamel said:

I'm still holding out faint hope that it still might go supernova sometime within my lifetime, purely for selfish reasons.   But I'll be really be upset when it does happen, it'll be during the northern hemispheric winter. 

Your wish may come true, according to a new study. We may be mere decades from the fireworks, not centuries.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.00287.pdf

Quote

We conclude that Betelgeuse should currently be in a late phase (or near the end) of the core carbon burning. After carbon is exhausted in the core, a core-collapse leading to a supernova explosion is expected in a few tens years.

 

 

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So how long is this "late stage" carbon burning supposed to last? That's one thing I couldn't find from that paper or my quick searches. Once it's over, it's decades, but how long until that 'final countdown' starts?

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On 8/13/2022 at 8:57 AM, Gargamel said:

I'm still holding out faint hope that it still might go supernova sometime within my lifetime, purely for selfish reasons.   But I'll be really be upset when it does happen, it'll be during the northern hemispheric winter. 

Do you need exactly Beatle Geyser, or alternative options are acceptable, too?

Spoiler

1280px-Olympic_Rings.svg.png

Spoiler

webb-reveals-never-before-seen-details-i

Spoiler
Spoiler

1024px-Cassiopeia_IAU.svg.png

Depending on the side of the mirror, the failed star is either Beta Cas (Caph)  or Epsilon Cas (Segin).

As we can read, Beta is a 1 Gyo F2 star of 2 Sun masses,  too young to die.

While Epsilon is a 15 Myo B3 giant of 9 Sun masses, in all its shining glory.

As unlikely Beta should explode soon, it's definitely Epsilon Cassiopeiae (aka Segin).

It's 440 ly away.

https://theskylive.com/sky/stars/segin-epsilon-cassiopeiae-star

So, it's officially declared, and we have just to wait.

Spoiler

A later confirmation.

 

 

Edited by kerbiloid
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2 hours ago, Shpaget said:

Your wish may come true, according to a new study. We may be mere decades from the fireworks, not centuries.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.00287.pdf

 

 

Dang it @Shpaget, I watched that two days ago, made my SO watch it, followed up by the PBS Space time episode of “Supernova will kill us all”, meant to post it and completely forgot.  

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

So how long is this "late stage" carbon burning supposed to last? That's one thing I couldn't find from that paper or my quick searches. Once it's over, it's decades, but how long until that 'final countdown' starts?

Given for what I could tell from that graph, once the end game starts, it’s pretty rapid, on a human scale.  

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11 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Given for what I could tell from that graph, once the end game starts, it’s pretty rapid, on a human scale.

The silicon-burning process lasts 1 day!!

I thought it was maybe a decade, a couple of years.

No, a measly 24 hours.

(Oxygen and Neon make this post-carbon era last about a year). 

 

 

The Wikipedia article is really interesting, give it a whirl. Shame it most likely won't, but one can dream.

 

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1 hour ago, Superluminal Gremlin said:

The silicon-burning process lasts 1 day!!

I thought it was maybe a decade, a couple of years.

No, a measly 24 hours.

The burning process turns on slo-mo, and while the silicon is burning, everything other stands still.

30 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Unfortunately, "late-stage carbon burning" may still last thousands of years.

Camera zooms out.

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