New Image Of Betelgeuse Reveals Hot Spots

New Image Of Betelgeuse Reveals Hot Spots
April 24, 2013

This star is the nearest red supergiant to Earth, easily visible to the unaided eye sitting on the top left shoulder of Orion the Hunter. Betelgeuse is about 1,000 times larger than our Sun and lies about 650 light years away from Earth.

Astronomers took a new image with the e-MERLIN radio telescope array operated from the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire. The image shows Betelgeuse’s atmosphere extending out to five times the size of the visual surface of the star. It also reveals two hot spots within the outer atmosphere and a faint arc of cool gas even farther out beyond the radio surface of the star. The arc of cool gas extends about as far away as Pluto is from our Sun.

The hot spots have a temperature of about 6,740 to 8,540 degrees Fahrenheit, which is much higher than the average temperature of the radio surface of the star and even higher than the visual surface. Dr. Anita Richards, from The University of Manchester, said they are not sure why the hot spots are so hot.

She said this is the first image showing hot spots this far away from the center of the star.
Scientists say when Betelgeuse explodes, it will be so epic it will brighten up the night sky significantly.

www.redorbit.com...

Mysterious hot spots observed in a cool red supergiant

The new image, taken by the e-MERLIN radio telescope array operated from the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, also shows regions of surprisingly hot gas in the star’s outer atmosphere and a cooler arc of gas weighing almost as much as the Earth. The scientists publish their results in a paper in the Oxford University Press journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

www.ras.org.uk...

The visual size of the star is overlaid as a black circle.



Figure 1
www.jb.man.ac.uk...
The constellation of Orion is visible to the left of the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank. Betelgeuse is the star at the top left of Orion. The inset shows the new e-MERLIN image of Betelgeuse. Credit: University of Manchester, Anthony Holloway.

Figure 2
www.jb.man.ac.uk...
The constellation of Orion is visible to the left of the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank. Betelgeuse is the star at the top left of Orion. Credit: Anthony Holloway, University of Manchester.

Figure 3
www.jb.man.ac.uk...
The new e-MERLIN radio image of Betelgeuse. The image is 1 arcsecond on a side, north is up and east is to the left. The observed frequency is 5.5-6.0 GHz and the resolution is about 60 milliarcseconds. The colours represent brightness ranging from red at the faintest to white at the brightest. Credit: University of Manchester

Figure 4
www.jb.man.ac.uk...
The e-MERLIN radio image of Betelgeuse with the visual size of the star overlaid as a black circle (diameter 45 milliarcseconds). Credit: University of Manchester

Figure 5
www.jb.man.ac.uk...
The e-MERLIN radio image of Betelgeuse with the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune scaled to this distance (200 parsecs or 650 light years) overlaid as grey circles. Credit: University of Manchester

It's been known for a while that the star is ready to go supernova , but nobody knows exactly when .
I'm sure it is being monitored daily .
One thing is for sure . When it goes , it will be a sight to behold .

regards.

reply to post by Gideon70


Yes but when


Red giant star Betelgeuse mysteriously shrinking

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations | 09 June 2009

BERKELEY — 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.

Long-term monitoring by UC Berkeley's Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI) on the top of Mt. Wilson in Southern California shows that Betelgeuse (bet' el juz), which is so big that in our solar system it would reach to the orbit of Jupiter, has shrunk in diameter by more than 15 percent since 1993.

The first measurements showed a size quite close to Michelson's result, but over 15 years, it has decreased in size about 15 percent, changing smoothly, but faster as the years progressed."

Since Betelgeuse's radius is about five astronomical units, or five times the radius of Earth's orbit, that means the star's radius has shrunk by a distance equal to the orbit of Venus.

www.berkeley.edu...

Does that mean it may pop sooner than we expected?

Originally posted by Gideon70
It's been known for a while that the star is ready to go supernova , but nobody knows exactly when .
I'm sure it is being monitored daily .
One thing is for sure . When it goes , it will be a sight to behold .

regards.

It may have exploded long ago for all we know and the light show is still on its way. If it is 650 light-years away, hopefully it happened 649 years and 11 months ago.

Here's hoping!

Supergiant Star Betelgeuse to Crash Into Cosmic 'Wall'
25 January 2013

The red supergiant star Betelgeuse in the famed constellation Orion is on a collision course with a strange wall of interstellar dust, with the clock ticking down to a cataclysmic cosmic smashup in 5,000 years, scientists say.

A new image of Betelgeuse by the European Space Agency's infrared Herschel space observatory, shows that the star will crash headlong into a trail of space dust while speeding through its part of the cosmos at a blistering 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) per second. That's about 66,960 mph (107,761 kph).

Betelgeuse is about 100,000 times brighter than the sun and 1,000 times larger.

www.space.com...

As a star runs out of fuel it can expand and will begin to form heavier elements such as carbon and iron . Once it finally exhausts all of its fuel it will begin to collapse. It is here that the stars begin to undergo different fates.

Our own sun will collapse until it becomes a white dwarf. The effect of electron degeneracy.
If neutron degeneracy is not enough to resist the star's collapse it will continue to shrink until the matter is all compressed into an infinitely small, infinitely dense point called a singularity , kind of the equivalent of the centre of a black hole .

So it comes as no surprise that the star is appearing to be shrinking .

She said this is the first image showing hot spots this far away from the center of the star. Scientists say when Betelgeuse explodes, it will be so epic it will brighten up the night sky significantly.

reply to post by MariaLida


Don't supernovas throw out a massive amount of gamma rays? Wouldn't earth be affected by this? Not at the moment of the explosion, but in later years?

Originally posted by WeRpeons

She said this is the first image showing hot spots this far away from the center of the star. Scientists say when Betelgeuse explodes, it will be so epic it will brighten up the night sky significantly.

reply to post by MariaLida

 

Don't supernovas throw out a massive amount of gamma rays? Wouldn't earth be affected by this? Not at the moment of the explosion, but in later years?

Scientists say Betelgeuse is too far to have effect on Earth when go supernova ..

I'm not so positive like them and I think it will probably have some effects on Earth ..

Originally posted by MariaLida

Originally posted by WeRpeons

She said this is the first image showing hot spots this far away from the center of the star. Scientists say when Betelgeuse explodes, it will be so epic it will brighten up the night sky significantly.

reply to post by MariaLida

 

Don't supernovas throw out a massive amount of gamma rays? Wouldn't earth be affected by this? Not at the moment of the explosion, but in later years?

Scientists say Betelgeuse is too far to have effect on Earth when go supernova ..

I'm not so positive like them and I think it will probably have some effects on Earth ..

edit on 25-4-2013 by MariaLida because: (no reason given)

Judging by the size of the star and its distance from Earth , I should imagine that the Gamma Ray burst would never reach us and even if it did , it would be probably less measurable than the Gamma Rays from the sun .

This is just my own theory and I could be wrong , but why worry about it ?

reply to post by Gideon70


Nice to see your theory ..

Also I already say what I think ..

Stars usually go out with a bang (Supernova) or a whimper ( gradual implosion ) . I think Betelgeuse may be a case of the latter .

All we can do is wait and see .

Originally posted by MariaLida

Originally posted by WeRpeons

She said this is the first image showing hot spots this far away from the center of the star. Scientists say when Betelgeuse explodes, it will be so epic it will brighten up the night sky significantly.

reply to post by MariaLida

 

Don't supernovas throw out a massive amount of gamma rays? Wouldn't earth be affected by this? Not at the moment of the explosion, but in later years?

Scientists say Betelgeuse is too far to have effect on Earth when go supernova ..

I'm not so positive like them and I think it will probably have some effects on Earth ..

edit on 25-4-2013 by MariaLida because: (no reason given)

Check it out with Stellarium program. It is too far away.