Episode 606: Betelgeuse Is Dimmer Than We've Ever Seen It

Over the last weekend, astronomy Twitter started noting that the red giant Betelgeuse, the prominent shoulder of Orion was looking visibly dimmer in the sky, and I had a few people reach out to me and ask me if it was really happening and if I knew what was going on.

This is exciting, of course, because Betelgeuse is living on borrowed time, and it could explode as a supernova any day now. Or, it might not detonate for another 100,000 years. We just don’t know.

What’s Betelgeuse up to? Is this a sign that it’s about to explode? And what would it mean if it did?

Our Book is out!

https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Today-Ultimate-Viewing-Cosmos/dp/1624145442/

Audio Podcast version:

ITunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/universe-today-guide-to-space-audio/id794058155?mt=2

RSS: https://www.universetoday.com/audio

Weekly email newsletter:

https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter

Weekly Space Hangout:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/

Astronomy Cast:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUHI67dh9jEO2rvK--MdCSg

Support us at https://www.patreon.com/universetoday

More stories at https://www.universetoday.com/

Twitch: https://twitch.tv/fcain

Twitter: @universetoday

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday

Instagram - https://instagram.com/universetoday

Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected]

Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw

Chad Weber - [email protected]

References:

https://twitter.com/starstrickenSF/status/1209207523179237376

https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/what-will-happen-when-betelgeuse-explodes-df5b04164b2

https://www.eso.org/public/usa/images/potw1726b/

https://hubblesite.org/image/4027/gallery

https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0708a/

http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=13341

https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/feature1.shtml

https://twitter.com/starstrickenSF/status/1209242710281986048

https://www.astro.princeton.edu/~gk/A403/pulse.pdf

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01852.pdf

https://aasnova.org/2018/01/03/astrophysics-of-red-supergiants/

https://neutrinos.fnal.gov/sources/supernova-neutrinos/

https://snews.bnl.gov/

https://researchblog.duke.edu/2014/01/22/supernova-explosion-in-m82-exciting-but-no-neutrinos/

https://aasnova.org/2018/04/20/capturing-neutrinos-from-a-stars-final-hours/

https://www.phys.hawaii.edu/~jgl/nuastron.html