Will humanity fry if Betelgeuse goes supernova?

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http://nevadatalks.com/index.php?topic=181.0

(sings) I'll stop the world and melt with you...

Well, at least we won't have to worry about North Korea and Iran getting nukes, since it will be millions of times more powerful than the entire nuclear arsenal of humanity.

That article says,

And what will that do?

The question is simply: Could we do anything about this? If not - why bother?

I saw a program a few months ago and it said the supernova would have to be within 200 light years to cause real problems here,and it is 3x that . It will be bright at night for a while though.

I would think it would be a big problem if you come from a small planet in the nearby vicinity

Supernova wouldn't kill us. A gamma-ray burst however would likely wipe us out.

1 - Betelgeuse can't go supernova. That's a different type of star. There is a small possibility that Betelgeuse will nova when its hydrogen runs out, as it switches over to fusing helium and blows off the remaining hydrogen (too small an amount to fuel it, at that point), but that's a different and less scary (from our viewpoint - still unpleasant close up) proposition.

2 - Betelgeuse is 640 light-years from Earth. It would probably be brighter than Venus at closest approach, but not as bright as the full moon - and the radioactive wavefront would have dispersed to the point that the Sun's own magnetic field will deflect it from the Solar system.

3 - And no matter what else happens, it almost certainly won't be happening this century. As noted in the article, the changes in Betelgeuse's apparent size could be due to severe stellar weather patterns, rather than an actual decrease in stellar diameter; and even if the star really is shrinking, it's not doing it that fast.

So overall I'd have to say no, there's nothing to be worried about, unless you're a roving researcher for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which case I'd try to rig your Thumb to work as a sub-etheric transmitter so you can say your goodbyes to the old homeworld....

Such facts! It is somewhere, between 560 and 800 light years?

At several hundred times the mass of the sun, it will not go Nova, Super Nova, Hyper Nova, but will form a Black Hole, with Gamma Burst from the poles, one of which is pointed in our direction.

Two seconds is a long Gamma burst, enough time to say, "Huh," but not enough to say, "what was that?"

The last was at the very end of the Sularian Era, 400 million years ago, there were survivors, it started the age of Dinosaurs.

I imagine an age coming when 100 ton cows feed on forests, and are food for 10 ton dogs.

Another possibility is, the short but deadly Gamma burst will only microwave the half of the planet facing it. It is a northern star, so Australia sounds like a place I would like to visit.

It sounds like a natural for tourist promotion. Australia, Safe beneath the Southern Stars.

ah ah ahhh...nobody says the 'b' word - Beetlejuice...

Our old friend the inverse-square law will attenuate any radiation by the time it gets to us; the blast sphere will be gynormous (I'm sure someone can calculate the intensity and volume by the time it gets to us...we got the geeks...

We are safe from Betelguese it as mentioed is not in the same catergory as a supernova star, betelguese would more likely go dwarf star and die or go black hole we would probably be safe from it even going black hole maybe but if super massive we are just screwed lol

560 light years seems a common error, as all seems a guess. As a Black Hole just what is this Event Horizon thing? How far will it reach? Super massive, call the geeks, for it is several hundred times the mass of the sun, and as I read Black Holes, all they do is gravity, and we get a new thing to orbit.

Before it started shrinking it was listed as a likely Super Nova within a thousand years.

I have one overriding concern, The Internet!

Black Holes have an amazingly small diameter (event horizon) and a slightly larger zone of interference of electromagnetic radiation (light, etc IIRC).....given shedloads of matter are being compressed into very small spaces, it makes sense. tl;dr it's hard to detect them unless you notice the gravity effects on other objects or light and they won't get earth being so small. and far away (referring to Betelgeuse)

We could not do a bloody thing. We would be cooked.

Even if deep shelters could hold some, life on or near the surface of the Earth would be destroyed. What would the survivors have when they came up? Some survivors might hold on for a short while but for the vast majority it is death by gamma radiation.

ruveyn

If we could predict when it was going off, one could probably ensure one's short-term survival by making sure to be on the opposite side of the Earth when it takes place. As I understand it, most of the gamma rays are released during the first few seconds, so by the time you see it, it's already too late.

Not according to astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegård. I think you might mean hyper nova; they send out gamma burst that can kill all life on a planet.

Betelgeuse has been dying for a long time, and now it seems that we'll see a super nova in our time! YAY!

What will happen is that the star will light up and become a beautiful sight. For a few months it will be luminous enough to be seen in day time. If Ødegårds assumption is correct we'll see this beautiful sight in 2,5 - 5 years time. I can't wait!

Oh, I wouldn't look at it through telescope, though, that could be harmful. And you may wish to admire Orion before the constellation is changed!

There is nothing to fear for Earth.

Ok, I'm ready to go and look. I should know where this stuff is.

Image of Orion
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tylerlove/ ... otostream/

star map
http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Ar ... n_Full.jpg
[The North Star (Polaris) is the first star in the Little Dipper's "handle," furthest from the "cup."]