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Is Betelgeuse about to blow?
- rrhyne 16y agoA better headline would be, "Is Betelguese about to blow, 500 years ago?"
- dmix 16y agoOr better yet "Betelguese might blow in the near future" http://unixronin.livejournal.com/763082.html http://unixronin.livejournal.com/763082.html
- adamesque 16y agoI thought about submitting that post earlier today, but, well, sourcing doesn't get much sketchier than that. My best hope was that some science journalist would actually contact observers at Mauna Kea, as a gut check, but Dr. Plait's dénouement is probably good enough for me.
- btilly 16y agoIn the reference frame of the light we see, it left there a tiny fraction of a second ago. (In fact I believe that most of the delay is due to time spent traversing the atmosphere.)
- jeffcoat 16y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity
- waterlesscloud 16y agoScience is so boring.
- robryan 16y agoWell the article doesn't really dismiss the idea as false, rather that it's unlikely.
- psadauskas 16y agoBecause its not false. Its just unlikely. I think he got it spot on. You expected him to say "It's not going to explode this year." then look like an idiot when it does? When someone doesn't know something, I expect them to say "I don't know," rather than try to pick up as many ad impressions as possible by saying something outrageous. Disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of Dr. Plait, the author of this blog.
- stcredzero 16y agoIf it does blow soon, and it turns out to be as bright as the sun, which is possible according to the article, might this have some impact on climate?
- jrockway 16y agoIt's a good idea to read the entire article, not just the forum posting it's mocking. Towards the bottom: At that distance, it’ll get bright, about as bright as the full Moon. That’s pretty bright! It’ll hurt your eyes to look at it, but that’s about it. The original post says it may get as bright as the Sun, but that’s totally wrong. It won’t even get 1/100,000th that bright. Still bright, but it’s not going to cook us. Even if it were going to explode soon. Which it almost certainly isn’t.
- marbu 16y agoThis visualization shows how bright it may become: http://mesic.hvezdarna.cz/2009/06/az-exploduje-betelgeuse.html http://mesic.hvezdarna.cz/2009/06/az-exploduje-betelgeuse.ht... On the one hand it looks pretty cool, on the other such bright star would make the other stars invisible.
- stcredzero 16y agojrockway, how do you distinguish careless reading of the article from reading the comments? I did read the article! Are you being careless with inferences, or intentionally attributing bad behavior on me with no evidence?
- simonsarris 16y agoA man from Mauna Kea says this is false. http://i.imgur.com/tAJpy.png http://i.imgur.com/tAJpy.png
- jrockway 16y agoSad. I like thunderstorms, but stars blowing up could be even cooler.
- crazydiamond 16y agoFunny, but there could be people living there ... billions or trillions !