Imagining a realistic apocalypse - Red Giant cooks world to death, or Tidal Forces turn it into swiss cheese

[YNM]

48 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Beware!

Betelgeuse is 640 light years from us, and we can't know exactly if it still exists: maybe it has blown 500 years ago.

It's a Schroedinger star for us: with some probability it exists, with some probability - no.

And your observations decrease the indeterminancy of Betelgeuse state and with 50:50 chance not in desired direction...

Haha, vapor words there...

Anyway, an RG or AGB won't explode in any way. They "explode" up as a Pre-Planetary Nebula (PPN) - short lived bizarre features, looking most of the time like an hourglass thanks to their bipolar outflow (jets of matter). RSG is another story, being a BLV they're suspect to exploding as SN Ib or some times SN Ic. Even so, I don't think exposure to star material is nice in any way...

Edited December 28, 2015 by YNM