The concept of time as described by Hawking in the beginning of "A Brief History of Time" (event horizon, light cone, etc.) greatly enhanced my understanding of reality.
It is astounding, mind expanding (if you will) to contemplate the mechanics of the universe as it really is.
The story starts, as all good astronomy and space stories seem to, on Friday night going into a holiday weekend. We started seeing discussion on Betelgeuse trending on social media on the evening of Friday, December 20th, and dug down to the source of the excitement: a December 8th paper on "The Fainting of the Nearby Red Supergiant Betelgeuse" by researchers at Villanova University.
Seriously, who hasn't had discussions like this? I get drawn into these discussions all the time. Normally between the first and second helpings of dessert. Rams
[This message has been edited by blackrams (edited 12-28-2019).]
"What would a supernova in Orion look like? ...100 times brighter than Venus, making it easily visible in the daytime sky... would also easily cast noticeable nighttime shadows.
Such an occurrence would be bittersweet: we would be extraordinarily lucky to see Betelgeuse go supernova in our lifetime… but familiar Orion the Hunter would never look the same again."
Sacrificing one of Orion's shoulders would be well worth the show!
[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 12-28-2019).]
Just a note: Betelgeuse is a variable star. So dimming isn't anything new. However, the amount of dimming is pretty significant this time.
From what I've read so far, dimming doesn't necessarily correlate with supernova activity. But it doesn't rule out the possibility of a supernova, either. At this very moment, Betelgeuse could be alive or dead. We won't know for another ~642 years, when the light eventually makes its way to us.
Yeah,give or take a few years...decades or even centuries. There is no fully proven distance from here to there. Scientists generally use 640 LY but it could be as much as (approx) 708LY or as 'little' as 600 light years and some scientists believe it is even much farther away.
The VLA radio telescope (Very Large Array) produced a solution of 643±146 ly; and although this value has a 22% error, the accepted distance is "approximately" 642 light-years.
One of those "we really just don't know" things.
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 12-29-2019).]
