Betelgeuse,Betelgeuse,Betelgeuse.

Hey Space Geeks,
I was out stargazing with my Orion Resolux 10x50 binocs. When I looked at Betelgeuse it seemed much more red in appearance. I know it's a red supergiant but it seemed dimmer and more red than usual. As I've heard it could go supernova any minute. It got too hazy for me to view it for very long and was wondering if anyone had noticed anything similar recently?

Thanks,
WS

Originally posted by WickedStar
Hey Space Geeks,
I was out stargazing with my Orion Resolux 10x50 binocs. When I looked at Betelgeuse it seemed much more red in appearance. I know it's a red supergiant but it seemed dimmer and more red than usual. As I've heard it could go supernova any minute. It got too hazy for me to view it for very long and was wondering if anyone had noticed anything similar recently?

Thanks,
WS

Is that the one in the Sagittarius constellation ? If so I heard when that one goes it will irradiate the Earth with Gamma rays so that most all life above ground will die.

it has looked peculiar for a year now to me. more red than i remember from years past.

reply to post by Fromabove


Betelgeuse is the bright star making the right shoulder of Orion.

Originally posted by Fromabove
Is that the one in the Sagittarius constellation ? If so I heard when that one goes it will irradiate the Earth with Gamma rays so that most all life above ground will die.

Oh boy here we go

Originally posted by Fromabove

Originally posted by WickedStar
Hey Space Geeks,
I was out stargazing with my Orion Resolux 10x50 binocs. When I looked at Betelgeuse it seemed much more red in appearance. I know it's a red supergiant but it seemed dimmer and more red than usual. As I've heard it could go supernova any minute. It got too hazy for me to view it for very long and was wondering if anyone had noticed anything similar recently?

Thanks,
WS

Is that the one in the Sagittarius constellation ? If so I heard when that one goes it will irradiate the Earth with Gamma rays so that most all life above ground will die.

Nope, Beatlejoos is in the Orion Constellation, up and to the left, the bright red one above the 3 starred "belt." I personally haven't seen any noticeable difference in it's naked eye luminosity or characteristics.

And as for supernova, yes, Betelgeuse could have already gone supernova, and the results are still yet to yield here on Earth. In fact:

The red supergiant star Betelgeuse, the bright reddish star in the constellation Orion, has steadily shrunk over the past 15 years, according to University of California, Berkeley, researchers

berkeley.edu...


I personally think Betelgeuse or Sirius B may possibly go, or have gone supernova soon or recently.

Something to easy bake your oven's...

I have noticed it looking a little different tonight, but then again a lot of stars look different to me lately. Take Sirius for example, I viewed it at like 2 this morning and it looked huge and flashing many more colors than it normally does, but I think it was just because of how clear the skies were and its position at the time.

reply to post by Fromabove


Professor Brian Cox says he's hoping to see it blow during his life time, cos it'll be a once in many life times opportunity and he feels he'd be really really lucky to see it. As such I doubt its going to cause earthlings any harm.

Id be interested to see it brighten up the northern hemisphere with a 3 day sun at night later this year, it would be harmless but it certainly would cause a stir.

I personally have some faith in the conspiracy that aliens who are involved with the government might make Betelguese give us a 3 day show later this year as a 'sign in the sky'. That's the conspiracy I believe because I believe Cox to be a illuminati insider... I trust him when he says it wont kill us but I do think that he's been put on tv to bring our attention to the fact that it may blow, and then when it does it'll make me think hmm... he knew it would.

And I know we all know it will go supernova, but im talking time frame wise that he may know exactly when.

reply to post by Lagrimas


Oh and just to qualify this mad statement slightly, After the recent star watching special on the BBC there was an after show where Cox and a tv presenter where chatting about the naming of some planets, one in particular that got discovered by a chap in his home via the internet by looking at charts of the wobble the planet was causing to a known star.

When Cox and the presenter where laughing about who gets to name the planets, the presenter said well I suppose we might need to go to a higher authority about this one, and then says rothschild in a really weird way. It was, in all fairness, creepy.

reply to post by Lagrimas



Hahah really is creepy. I don't know than an alien civilization would bring Betelgeuse to supernova just to let us see that they existed...most of us believe they exist anyways. But yeah, that bit about "Rothchild" is strange. Do you have a link to a vid clip for it?

Originally posted by Lagrimas
reply to post by Fromabove

 

Professor Brian Cox says he's hoping to see it blow during his life time, cos it'll be a once in many life times opportunity and he feels he'd be really really lucky to see it. As such I doubt its going to cause earthlings any harm.

Id be interested to see it brighten up the northern hemisphere with a 3 day sun at night later this year, it would be harmless but it certainly would cause a stir.

I personally have some faith in the conspiracy that aliens who are involved with the government might make Betelguese give us a 3 day show later this year as a 'sign in the sky'. That's the conspiracy I believe because I believe Cox to be a illuminati insider... I trust him when he says it wont kill us but I do think that he's been put on tv to bring our attention to the fact that it may blow, and then when it does it'll make me think hmm... he knew it would.

And I know we all know it will go supernova, but im talking time frame wise that he may know exactly when.

edit on 6-2-2012 by Lagrimas because: (no reason given)

edit on 6-2-2012 by Lagrimas because: (no reason given)

edit on 6-2-2012 by Lagrimas because: loads of spelling errors i keep noticing and 1 extra sentence.

Yeah, Cox sucks! He is a phoney and stooge.

Nice ,OP.
I have known about this possibility for sometime.
Like between now and 1,000,000 years from now.

But you have noticed changes to it which means it maybe getting close to going super nova ,and when it does,it will visibly brighter than the moon in the night sky.

At its current distance from Earth, such a supernova explosion would be the brightest recorded, outshining the Moon in the night sky and becoming easily visible in broad daylight.[36] Professor J. Craig Wheeler of The University of Texas at Austin predicts the supernova will emit 1053 ergs of neutrinos, which will pass through the star's hydrogen envelope in around an hour, then reach the solar system several centuries later. Since its rotational axis is not pointed toward the Earth, Betelgeuse's supernova is unlikely to send a gamma ray burst in the direction of Earth large enough to damage ecosystems.[97] The flash of ultraviolet radiation from the explosion will likely be weaker than the ultraviolet output of the Sun. The supernova could brighten to an apparent magnitude of −12 over a two-week period, then remain at that intensity for 2 to 3 months before rapidly dimming. The year following the explosion, radioactive decay of cobalt to iron will dominate emission from the supernova remnant, and the resulting gamma rays will be blocked by the expanding envelope of hydrogen. If the neutron star remnant becomes a pulsar, then it could produce gamma rays for thousands of years.[98]

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Lagrimas


Someone told me a story once that a Rothschild can either be a banker or a zoologist. I was told zoology because that way they control what everything is named and how people perceive it. Wouldn't be surprised if they had a hand in naming celestial bodies.

reply to post by WickedStar


I don't know but when I started teaching my children about stars in the sky -- Betelgeuse was the one I started with.

I can only offer naked eye observations and it still has the reddish-orange tint that I have always seen from my lonely spot here on Earth.

Originally posted by WickedStar
It got too hazy for me to view it for very long and was wondering if anyone had noticed anything similar recently?

You may have just answered your own question. Hazy means more atmosphere, and thats one reasons why sunsets turn reddish, the light is penetrating more atmosphere near the horizon. Industrialization air pollution also affords us more colorful sunsets/moonsets.

Originally posted by Fromabove
If so I heard when that one goes it will irradiate the Earth with Gamma rays so that most all life above ground will die.

Its much too far away to hurt us, what, something like 650 light years?
Some conservative estimates put a safe distance from a direct gamma ray hit (polar direction) at 200 lys, others more boldly put a safe distance as close as 25 lys proximity, out of a polar direction.

There are no stars within 200 lys from us approaching supernova.

Wanting Sirius B to go supernova is a very silly wish indeed. At a distance of only 8.7 light years, the consequences for life on Earth would be catastrophic. Anyway, it's a moot point, because Sirius B is nowhere near massive enough to explode.

reply to post by WickedStar

Curious you should mention that. My son has been dreaming of waking up to a red sky, and last night I too had a dream of waking up to a red sky. Red Planet, Red Sky, I guess we will all find out for sure soon, huh?

Don't worry, I don't think Betelgeuse is going supernova anytime soon:

The Mystery of the Shrinking Red Star

The electric model of bright stars shows that there is an exquisitely simple control mechanism introduced by a bright photosphere. The photosphere acts like a junction transistor to regulate the current flow between the star and its environment. It results in a remarkably steady output of light and heat radiation despite a varying power supply. For example, the Sun, viewed in X-rays, is a variable star. X-rays are generated high above the photosphere and are a measure of electrical power input. They reveal the variability of the Sun’s power source. The photosphere generates the radiant output, which is stabilized by its transistor effect.

Dim red stars like Betelgeuse do not have the same power control mechanism. They respond to variation in their power supply instead by varying the surface area of their glowing plasma sheath—in other words, their visible size. Our own Sun varies slightly in size, much to the puzzlement of astrophysicists. However, what is called “the photosphere” of Betelgeuse is physically and electrically nothing like the photosphere of bright stars.

The decrease in diameter of Betelgeuse over 15 years suggests a slow change in the power input to Betelgeuse. Shrinking is a normal response of a glow discharge plasma sheath to an increase in the availability of electrons from the galactic plasma. Such an increase may be due to rising current in the local galactic circuit. Or it may be due to a decrease in dustiness of the plasma near the star (dust particles tend to scavenge electrons). Our Sun registers such a change through the sunspot cycle and X-ray output. It seems likely that Betelgeuse will expand or oscillate in size in future. The presence of hot spots on Betelgeuse should be correlated with changes in its diameter.

Originally posted by Mogget
Wanting Sirius B to go supernova is a very silly wish indeed. At a distance of only 8.7 light years, the consequences for life on Earth would be catastrophic. Anyway, it's a moot point, because Sirius B is nowhere near massive enough to explode.

Quite the contrary, it would not necessarily be catastrophic to Earth. Secondly, what exactly is nowhere near? A type 1a supernova, which is what Sirius B would be if it did go super, accretes matter from its parent star. The theory is that once it reaches that Chandreskar crit. mass or however the hell you spell it, then it blows up. Sirius B is roughly the diameter of Earth, with one solar mass. The crit. mass limit is 1.3 Solar masses. So yes, if this number is absolute and applicable to every and ALL white dwarfs, then it has a ways to go. The only qualms I have with that is that we certainly don't know even close to everything about celestial body dynamics (if you think we do you're making a poor judgment) so with this in mind, if that crit. mass point can fluctuate, then we have a white dwarf that may or may not be startling close to that. Now, people have been saying that even at its close pass to Sirius A, its still too far to accrete matter. My beef with this notion is that white dwarfs are composed of carbon-oxygen, yet when we look at the spectral analysis of Sirius B, nothing but hydrogen shows up, which happens to be what the shell of Sirius A is composed of.

Anyway, who wanted Sirius B to blow up?

For all we know beetleguese could have already went supernova correct? It is I believe like 600 LY away so we wouldn't know until all the X-rays and gamma rays etc. started showing up on our I struments correct? I'm not sure if we have satellites or radio telescopes directed that way to pick up any changes which I'm sure we would be able to detect before we saw the bright light. I'm sure im wrong in some aspects but I might be right in a few. In any case I would love to be able to witness a spectacle like that in my lifetime if for nothing else to show my kids and peak their Intrest in the cosmos. Let me know where I'm wrong and where I may be right.