Betelgeuse

Post Reply New Topic

As if we didn't have enough to worry about, there is always Betelgeuse. It is a large star about to go supernova. And it is close to Earth. Too close in my humble opinion. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star of spectral type M1-2 and one of the largest visible to the naked eye. It is usually the tenth-brightest star in the night sky and, after Rigel, the second-brightest in the constellation of Orion. Its distance has been quite difficult to measure; current best estimates are on the order of 500–600 light-years from the Sun.

From my perspective, that is a little bit too close to Earth. So it might be a threat or maybe not. In my opinion it depends on the spin angle of the star in relationship to the Earth. I tend to think 1500 light years distance is the cut off range of the threat.

According to the article that I stumbled across today:

What’s the Deal with Betelgeuse?

In late 2019 Betelgeuse, a star within the Orion constellation, grew dim, leading to speculation that its life might be at an end and it would become a supernova. The dimming, now felt due to “dust” and stellar activity obscuring our view, has resolved. Not so the concerns over Betelgeuse.

Supernovae give off so much energy they can be seen across the universe. Something else to be concerned about is that the flood of ultraviolet and x-ray radiation from a nearby supernova can strip away Earth’s protective ozone layer.

In general this article downplays the threat. But it still resides on my list of deep, deep threats. It is all a function of the spin angle alignment of Betelgeuse with our planet.

An explosion of Betelgeuse does represent a threat to our planet.

Betelgeuse’s color is due to the fact that it is an ageing ‘red supergiant’ star, over one billion kilometres in diameter (that’s nearly 1,000 times the size of our Sun). Like other red supergiants, it will end its life by exploding in a dramatic supernova. This will be so bright that we can see it during the daytime on Earth.



The star’s name has its origins in Arabic, and there’s no consensus on whether the ‘g’ is hard or not in the Westernised version. But a common way of pronouncing it is like the 1988 film Beetlejuice.

(Apparently there are smartphone apps that can help you know when the star is visible during what hours during the night depending on your location. https://www.astrotourism.com/news/10-ap ... martphone/ )

At roughly 10 million years old, Betelgeuse is much younger than our nearly 5-billion-year-old Sun. But while it is much younger, it is also much more massive and will burn through its materials faster and will therefore have a shorter lifespan than a star like our Sun.

Betelgeuse is about 640 light-years away. This means that it takes the light from this star 641 years to reach Earth, so if you see Betelgeuse in the night sky, you’re seeing the star from 640 years ago.

Betelgeuse is also one of the largest stars visible to the unaided eye. It’s about 700 times the size of the Sun and around 15 times more massive. In fact, Betelgeuse is so giant that, if we replaced our Sun with Betelgeuse, it would stretch past Jupiter's orbit.

In the fall of 2019, Betelgeuse started to drastically dip in brightness, outside of its typical brightening and fading cycle. Within months, the star had dimmed by about 60% in an event now known as the Great Dimming.

This sudden dimming was so significant that some scientists wondered if Betelgeuse was entering a "pre-supernova" phase, which precludes a massive star’s explosive “death” in a supernova. Talk of a possible explosion sparked intrigue around the world as Betelgeuse would be the closest supernova to ever be observed and recorded by humans.



The red supergiant is destined to end its life in a supernova blast. Some astronomers think the sudden dimming may be a pre-supernova event.

So the big questions are what will occur on our planet when the star goes supernova, how will it affect Earth, and how to protect lifeforms on earth for surviving such an event.

In my humble opinion, the explosion of Betelgeuse represents a massive threat to the inhabitants of our planet Earth.

If Betelgeuse exploded right now, no one on Earth would know for another 300 years, so why worry?

You seem to be at odds with ALL of the experts. No one in media seems all that worried about it.

I can imagine it messing up our communication satellites, and forcing us to have a moratorium on manned space trips to the space station. But no one is even predicting that ...much less what you're talking about ...turning life on earth's surface to toast.

Wiki says that when it blows it will be "about as bright as a half moon for about three months, but wont hurt life on Earth".

This is a logical fallacy.
Not totally your fault though. What they mean when they say "Betelgeus is about to explode" is that "Betelgeuse may have already exploded six hundred years ago, and if so we will soon see it, and feel the effects, if any, or it."

Supposedly we are ...right now...observing signs that it is about to explode.

We are...right now...seeing the final countdown to ignition...ten....nine...eight....

SO if we are seeing this countdown NOW then it must have actually have already happened six hundred years ago.

Therefore the explosion at the end of the countdown must also have already happened six hundred years (minus a fortnight) ago.

Therefore...a fortnight from NOW...we will see it happen...Betelgeuse blow. Even though it already actually happened centuries ago.

If it really did blow, or if that will effect us significantly even if it did, are both open questions. The point is that any vital signs we see today would have the same time delay as the event that they supposedly lead up to.

Maybe . . . maybe . . . maybe . . .

All this fear, uncertainty, and doubt is based on speculation.  If human civilization is wiped out by a supernova many hundreds of light-years away, there is not one damn thing we can do about it.  We have no global deflector shields, no space-warp to drive our escape vessels, and no escape vessels larger than an SUV.

Besides, global warming will likely end civilization in another couple of generations, so why not make the best of it?

But if it exploded already many years ago, it could be about to strike our planet at any moment with a flood of ultraviolet and x-ray radiation. And then great CHAOS will begin to happen.

Now I remember. I looked at this type of threat around 20 years ago and put together an action plan should it happen.

SUPERNOVA: DISASTER PREPAREDNESS PLAN

Sorry for being late. I suffered a massive stroke about 2 years ago and my mind was destroyed. But it is slowly coming back online.

A little over 15 years ago, I retired after working for around 4 decades as a physicist and an engineer. I was looking forward to retirement. But that didn't happen. You see that within a few days I received a surprise visitor.

A little after 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 3 June 2008, a large tornado swept up from the south. It came over the high ridge behind the house and demolished a high voltage power transmission line running through my property. As it descended down the hill towards the house, it splintered into several tornados. Fortunately the tornados missed the house even though it closely struck on all four sides. I lost around 50 large trees to these beasts. Some trees were torn from the earth at their roots while others were broken in two like twigs. I was in a state of shock.

My home is a little unique. The design and construction is above average. It survived even though large treas were torn apart in every direction around my home.

I told my wife that I needed to build an underground shelter in the event that in the future our house once again would be hit by a tornado. And she agreed. So after spending a year cutting up the downed trees for firewood (a 10 year supply), I began to construct a very unique underground shelter.

Now I realized that a tornado was not just the only thing that might strike me and my family in the future. So I went to work on designing a very unique shelter. I designed it for almost any threat that could pose a danger, including a nearby supernova event. I named the shelter "Armor of God” Shelter"

Here is a list of its ability:

Tornadoes and Storms
Global Famine
Plague and Epidemics
Major Earthquakes
Super Volcanoes
Nuclear Attack
Biological Attack
Chemical Attack
Asteroid/Comet Impact
Massive Solar Storm
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack
Nearby Supernova
Neutron Bomb Attack
Financial Collapse and Civil Unrest
Thousand-Year Flood
Great Winter Storm
Forest Fire and Firestorms

Here is a link to my construction project. It turns out that after the cost of building a tornado shelter, it only cost about 5% more to add an additional capability to the shelter design. So I was retired and this project seemed interesting to me.

I am not just a man of thoughts. I am also a man of action.

“Armor of God” Shelter

In this link, you can see what my driveway looked like after the tornado struck on 3 June 2008. It was like a war zone. My whole property was a war zone.

And I constructed this shelter just in case some rainy day the world might be smashed by (among other things) a nearby supernova explosion.

Betelgeuse,

Betelgeuse

Every night you greet me


Betelgeuse,

Betelgeuse

so big and red...

toast my home planet forever....


https://youtu.be/HR43hf2hJhg

naturalplastic Betelgeuse may be more then a chuckle when it explodes. This is how a supernova can affect our world.

A nearby supernova (an exploding star) is a very dangerous and least understood threat. For most people, it will be a scientific curiosity as a new brilliant star is born and grows to the size of the moon or the sun. But the sky will darken and the sun and moon will turn to blood and then the dying will start.

Most supernovas occur in distant galaxies millions of light years from earth. They appear as a new star that will fade away in time. They generally pose little danger to our planet. The supernovas that are of concern are those, which are relatively close, in the range of 30 to 2,000 light years from Earth. [One upcoming supernova of concern is the explosion of the star Betelgeuse, a red supergiant estimated to be 640 light years from Earth. This is a northern hemisphere star.]

An exploding star rips atoms apart and accelerates some of these fragments, the protons and pieces of atoms (ions), to near light speed and releases these particles to the universe. These fragments are called Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs). The faster these particles travel, the higher their energy levels. Since these GCRs are traveling at near light speed rather than at light speed, the first wave will collide with our solar system several days after the new supernova becomes visible. And as time goes on, the succeeding particles will carry less energy and be less dangerous.

As these high energy GCRs collide with earth’s atmosphere, they will break down the molecule that comprise our atmosphere. The bonds that hold oxygen molecules (O2) and nitrogen molecules (N2) will be blasted apart. In many cases the atoms will recombine to form nitrogen oxides. Nitrogen dioxide is a reddish brown gas that will color the appearance of the sun and moon with a bloody hue. The collision will also start a cascade of particles with sufficient energy to reach the surface of the planet.

This threat and a preparedness plan is described in detail in “Supernova: Disaster Preparedness Plan” available at http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/SDPP.pdf

High-energy nuclear radiation is one of the most deadly forms of radiation. It is roughly ten times more effective at causing biological damage compared to gamma or beta radiation of equivalent energy exposure. It can cause instantaneous neurological damage producing sudden death. The ionization from these particles as they collide with cells in the body can generate an electrical shock that can stop a beating heart. This radiation can cause bone marrow damage. When this form of radiation strikes the brain, it can cause permanent damage producing dementia. This can turn individuals into murdering barbarians and on a large scale can destroy the fabric of civilization. It can increase cancer risk, primarily leukemia. It can also cause genetic mutation.

In general, the human body with its immune system is capable of dealing with exposure to lighter forms of radiation. But the heavy forms, high-energy nuclear radiation, are very destructive to the DNA creating double breaks in the DNA molecule, which causes genetic mutations.

Many of the survivors will only be able to speak gibberish. Without the ability to speak, read or write; people lose the tenants of society and civilizations and nations disintegrate and come to an abrupt end.

This nuclear radiation will not only affect humans but will also genetically mutate bacteria and viruses. This will in turn spawn major epidemics in man and beast (i.e. deadly variants of the black plague, rinderpest).

High-energy particle radiation can also be very deadly to electronics; especially transistors, semiconductors, integrated circuits and computer chips.

Also it would depend on the alignment angle of its magnetic poles with both its spin and our planet?

Anyhow, are these things currently measurable? Is it known how likely it would be for Betelgeuse to point straight at us at any time in the foreseeable future?

What are you taking about?

It would be like a hand grenade going off. Not like a pistol shooting. It would just explode in every direction. There is no "direction" of aim.

Stars, like planets, slowly rotate. But that rotation doesnt focus the explosion when they go supernova.

The experts all say that the star in question is five or six hundred light years away.

The average distance between stars is in the part of the galaxy is about six light years apart.

So if our galaxy were a suburban neighborhood Betelgeuse would a hundred doors down from us.

If it were one door down (like Alpha Centauri) we would be in deep doo doo.

But the experts seem to agree that Betelgeuse is far enough away to not be much of a problem.

So you're at odds with the rest of the experts on that issue.

Seems to me that this thread was started to spread FUD and sell an un-needed product, not to inform and educate the public.

As the star collapses, its rotation would speed up quite a bit, according to the law of conservation of angular momentum.

And, according to what I've read, some (but not all) large supernovae emit gamma ray bursts, which fire out through the poles of the exploding star. See, for example:

- Gamma-Ray Bursts, an article which specifically says, "A gamma-ray burst may form when the core of a heavy star collapses to form a black hole. Gases around the core form a swirling disk around the black hole. [...] The gamma rays fire out through the poles of the dying star. These beams are incredibly powerful. They can emit more energy in a few seconds than the Sun will produce in its entire lifetime — about 10 billion years." (Emphasis mine.)

- Astronomers may have finally connected supernovae and gamma ray bursts. (This article doesn't specifically mention emission via the poles, but shows this in an accompanying picture.)

An exploding star is generally chaotic, obviously, but nevertheless obeys physical laws like the law of conservation of angular momentum, which may also affect its electromagnetic properties. So it wouldn't be quite like a hand grenade, since a typical large star has MUCH more angular momentum than a typical hand grenade.

I'm not sure whether Betelgeuse is large enough to emit gamma ray bursts, as described in the above articles, when it goes supernova. If it is, then those gamma ray bursts would obviously be extremely dangerous if pointed in our direction.

So my question is whether enough is known about Betelgeuse's rotation to predict how likely it would be that one of its poles would point toward us when it goes supernova.