On the shoulder of Orion , there is a reddened star at the end of its life . Its name is Betelgeuse , and it has many astronomers wondering what on earth is hold up on . For the last month or so it has experiencedextreme dimming , hold expected value , and conduct many to wonder if the star going supernova will encounter sooner than we thought possible .
Betelgeuseis a supergiant , and a semi - even variable star ; its brightness naturally oscillates over metre . It has a main period of about 400 Day , a long one of 2,100 days , and a shorter one of about half a class . The latest update on the land of Betelgeuse testify that its dimming carry on , although the rate at which it ’s dimming appears to have slowed down .
The changes in brightness due to these periods are grownup enough to be seeable to the defenseless center . The star can go from brighter than Vega , the fifth brightest star in the sky , to dimmer than Deneb , the nineteenth brightest star in the dark sky . The late measurement , announce in anAstronomer Telegramrecently , puts Betelgeuse out of theTop 20brightest stars for the first time since track record began a century ago .
It ’s important to note that Betelgeuse , and red supergiants in general , are not well - defined spheres of hot plasma such as you might require with a star like our Sun . It is 11 times the mass of our own wizard , but it is much much bigger in size . It has a radius 900 times bigger than the Sun ( 626 million kilometers/ 389 million miles ) , which means it would well fit 729 million Sun in its volume .
So do n’t picture a sphere , think of it more as an ever - changing blob : Its outer layer move , it quail and thrive , wake up and cools down , and commence vivid and dimmer . Since last September it became 100 ° C ( 180 ° F ) ice chest and its luminosity drop by a quarter .
If these change are due to internal processes , then those procedure have lead to the radius of Betelgeuse expanding about 9 percent . However , this is not the only explanation . The star might have rout gas and detritus that is now chill off and that ’s blocking some of the luminance we get from the star .
If the dimming is part of an special - stiff installment of the 420 - sidereal day menses , the lower limit is almost upon us , anticipate between late January and early February . If it continues to slur after that , then something else might be going on .
Betelgeuse will eventually die in a striking supernova explosion , which will be very distinctly seeable from Earth . Any twenty-four hours could be a good day for it to go gold rush , but do n’t get your hopes up just yet . Despite its recent peculiar behavior , it ’s more potential that it still has several thousand years left .
