> Estimates based on the mass of Betelgeuse, its rotation rate, the group of stars it was born with, and the amount of metals we can measure in the upper layers

> Estimates based on the mass of Betelgeuse, its rotation rate, the group of stars it was born with, and the amount of metals we can measure in the upper layers of its atmosphere, all suggest that it's somewhere in the neighborhood of a few hundred thousand years from now, it's going to go supernova. Trivia: in astrophysics "metal" doesn't mean the same thing it means in most of the rest of science, engineering, or common use. To an astrophysicist metal means "any element heavier than helium" which is all of them except for hydrogen and helium.