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I found this interesting enough to make a thread about this.
edit: found english articles, so I am changing the translated one with this one
Earth could be getting a second sun, at least temporarily.
Dr. Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland, outlined the scenario to news.com.au. Betelgeuse, one of the night sky's brightest stars, is losing mass, indicating it is collapsing. It could run out of fuel and go super-nova at any time.
When that happens, for at least a few weeks, we'd see a second sun, Carter says. There may also be no night during that timeframe.
The Star Wars-esque scenario could happen by 2012, Carter says... or it could take longer. The explosion could also cause a neutron star or result in the formation of a black hole 1300 light years from Earth, reports news.com.au.
But doomsday sayers should be careful about speculation on this one. If the star does go super-nova, Earth will be showered with harmless particles, according to Carter. "They will flood through the Earth and bizarrely enough, even though the supernova we see visually will light up the night sky, 99 per cent of the energy in the supernova is released in these particles that will come through our bodies and through the Earth with absolutely no harm whatsoever," he told news.com.au.
In fact, a neutrino shower could be beneficial to Earth. According to Carter this "star stuff" makes up the universe. "It literally makes things like gold, silver - all the heavy elements - even things like uranium....a star like Betelgeuse is instantly forming for us all sorts of heavy elements and atoms that our own Earth and our own bodies have from long past supernovi," said Carter.
source:
http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/961/Wetenschap/article/detail/1211184/2011/01/21/Straks-krijgen-we-een-tweede-zon-aan-onze-hemel.dhtml
http://www.conservativerefocus.com/blog5.php/2011/01/20/twin-suns-for-earth-if-betelgeuse-goes-super-nova-second-sun-actually-possible-with-no-night
http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/tatooines-twin-suns-coming-to-a-planet-near-you-just-as-soon-as-betelgeuse-explodes/story-fn5fsgyc-1225991009247
http://io9.com/5738542/earth-may-soon-have-a-second-sun
edit:
Another article about this by request (since it clears up a few things)
http://news.discovery.com/space/dont-panic-betelgeuse-wont-explode-in-2012.html
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We won't get a second sun. We orbit one sun and that's final, young man.
Edit: We orbit one sun, we might get a supernova and it might be brighter for a couple weeks, but it's NOT going to change anything for very long.
User was temp banned for this post.
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I just translated the article,
yes if you want to be nitpicky, we will never have two actual suns, but if you would look up at the sky after this has happened it would appear as if we had two.
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That would be interesting, but your source doesn't seem like something I'd believe in right away.
If it were true, and it means that we won't have night, then that would cause serious problems for many species on the planet, wouldn't it?
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
edit: oops didn't read the article right.
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First, Betelgeuse is usually the second brightest star in Orion, as unless it's at maximum visual magnitude (it's a variable star), it's outshined by Rigel. It's also not the second largest star in the Milky Way by diameter or mass.
The fact that we'd probably see Betelgeuse going supernova any time in the next few million years notwithstanding, the whole idea of two "suns" in the sky is ridiculous. Even at its brightest, it's never going to come close to the brightness of the sun in the sky, and unless we detect it visually going supernova during winter in the Northern Hemisphere, we're not going to see much of anything (because of the position it occupies in the sky).
EDIT: I'm not going to bother responding to any of this 2012 business either. Those of you who think something might actually happen are profoundly deluded.
EDIT2: Oh, and I'm virtually certain that none of us will observe Betelgeuse go supernova in any of our lifetimes.
EDIT3: Apparently OP was updated. There were originally a few factually incorrect assertions that I addressed in my post (part of which no longer makes sense in context).
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From what I can understand, all it says is that it could happen by 2012, but we don't know enough to know if it actually will happen by then. They just know that it's going to happen...eventually. x]
I think it'd be pretty cool to witness though...
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kinda cool 
though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean?
its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all 
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On January 21 2011 17:14 Empyrean wrote:
First, Betelgeuse is usually the second brightest star in Orion, as unless it's at maximum visual magnitude (it's a variable star), it's outshined by Rigel. It's also not the second largest star in the Milky Way by diameter or mass.
.
That is actually what the article said, but I probably worded it wrong when I translated it.
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On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all
None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth.
And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion.
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If Betelgeuse actually goes supernova, I'm more so concerned if it will create a gamma-ray burst and if it does create such an event, hopefully the burst isn't aimed directly towards us.....
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On January 21 2011 17:20 MageSoren wrote:
If Betelgeuse actually goes supernova, I'm more so concerned if it will create a gamma-ray burst and if it does create such an event, hopefully the burst isn't aimed directly towards us.....
This is a much more rational concern, but since Betelgeuse's axis of rotation isn't aligned to us, we won't be affected at all.
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it doesnt matter because we're all going to die in a few months anyways in 2012
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I would love to see a super nova, and then suddenly becoming dark again knowing that a black hole is formed. If it ends up being a super massive black hole, we're screwed right?
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It's rather sad that obviously the good doctor knows exactly what he's talking about, and the writers have no clue. Some of those articles are better informed, and some of them latch on the fact that it's an exploding star and somehow manage to drag the Mayans into it. Also...
In fact, a neutrino shower could be beneficial to Earth. According to Carter this "star stuff" makes up the universe. "It literally makes things like gold, silver - all the heavy elements - even things like uranium....a star like Betelgeuse is instantly forming for us all sorts of heavy elements and atoms that our own Earth and our own bodies have from long past supernovi," said Carter.
It almost sounds like the author thinks neutrinos will turn the earth into gold and uranium.
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On January 21 2011 17:28 jstar wrote:
I would love to see a super nova, and then suddenly becoming dark again knowing that a black hole is formed. If it ends up being a super massive black hole, we're screwed right?
No, as it would have the same mass, and thus the same gravitational effect on surrounding space. Whatever gravitational influence Betelgeuse currently has on us (virtually zero) will remain the same if it becomes a supermassive black hole. In fact, it'll probably exert even less gravitational influence as it's currently hemorrhaging mass at a gigantic rate.
If, say, the sun were to be replaced by a blackhole of equal mass, Earth's current trajectory would be also be undisturbed.
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On January 21 2011 17:21 Empyrean wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:20 MageSoren wrote:
If Betelgeuse actually goes supernova, I'm more so concerned if it will create a gamma-ray burst and if it does create such an event, hopefully the burst isn't aimed directly towards us..... This is a much more rational concern, but since Betelgeuse's axis of rotation isn't aligned to us, we won't be affected at all.
I haven't heard of this before, last I heard people thought they were caused by hypernovae or magnetars... what's the new theory?
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On January 21 2011 17:32 starfries wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:21 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:20 MageSoren wrote:
If Betelgeuse actually goes supernova, I'm more so concerned if it will create a gamma-ray burst and if it does create such an event, hopefully the burst isn't aimed directly towards us..... This is a much more rational concern, but since Betelgeuse's axis of rotation isn't aligned to us, we won't be affected at all. I haven't heard of this before, last I heard people thought they were caused by hypernovae or magnetars... what's the new theory?
From wikipedia:
The most widely-accepted mechanism for the origin of long-duration GRBs is the collapsar model,[56] in which the core of an extremely massive, low-metallicity, rapidly-rotating star collapses into a black hole in the final stages of its evolution. Matter near the star's core rains down towards the center and swirls into a high-density accretion disk. The infall of this material into a black hole drives a pair of relativistic jets out along the rotational axis, which pummel through the stellar envelope and eventually break through the stellar surface and radiate as gamma rays.
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Woah. What do you think a few weeks of no darkness will do to the environment? That's got to screw with your circadian rhythm...
I wonder if any animals or plants would get screwed up by that? Like nocturnal hunters/scavengers might be in trouble, o.o;
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Empyerean please stop pretending you're a Wizard. Only Wizards Know that many things and you're obviously not a Wizard.
I seen Gandalf in lotr and you aint Gandalf. You're a fraud.
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can you clarify this for me:
Is the observation of betelgeuze losing mass actually an observation off the star itself or basicly from the light that we get from it (I have no idea how they actually measure those things).
So let's say this happened a bit more then 600 years ago, it's actually possible (altough we would have to be incredibly lucky) to see this in 2012 or later.
Or is this an observation of the star itself, and even if this happens in 2012 it will still take 600+ years for that light to reach earth?
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On January 21 2011 17:37 Boonbag wrote:
Empyerean please stop pretending you're a Wizard. Only Wizards Know that many things and you're obviously not a Wizard.
I seen Gandalf in lotr and you aint Gandalf. You're a fraud.
"Empyrerean" just strikes me as a like, ancient word for wizard/genius or something.
So yeah, he probably does know everything.
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On January 21 2011 17:37 Icx wrote:
can you clarify this for me:
Is the observation of betelgeuze losing mass actually an observation off the star itself or basicly from the light that we get from it (I have no idea how they actually measure those things).
So let's say this happened a bit more then 600 years ago, it's actually possible (altough we would have to be incredibly lucky) to see this in 2012 or later.
Or is this an observation of the star itself, and even if this happens in 2012 it will still take 600+ years for that light to reach earth?
Think critically about this one for a second; light is currently the fastest known measurable speed. Unless we have a magic way to learn about distant objects - faster than the speed of light, then there's no way we can measure properties of distant objects faster than we would be able to observe radiation coming from it.
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Yeah sorry the truth is nowhere near as "exciting" as stories passed off by second-rate journalists who can't get their facts straight and should have no business reporting anything related to science.
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On January 21 2011 17:14 Empyrean wrote:
EDIT: I'm not going to bother responding to any of this 2012 business either. Those of you who think something might actually happen are profoundly deluded.
Not to derail the thread too much, but if too many people honestly believe something will happen then they may cause something to happen. Thankfully I believe that most people aren't that retarded.
Edit: obviously people here can't cause a supernova there... should go without saying that when I say "cause something" I mean something a little more down to earth.
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yes you are right, that probably was a bit of a silly question.
But for some reason when I read that betelgeuze is 640 lightyears from earth I didn't realize it would be close to impossible to actually measure it from that star itself.
(well I may sound stupid again, but I guess even if they had the technology a long time ago, the thing used to measure (can't think of the english name atm) that would probably still be on it's way to there
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*gasp*
User was warned for this post
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On January 21 2011 17:08 numLoCK wrote:
That would be interesting, but your source doesn't seem like something I'd believe in right away.
If it were true, and it means that we won't have night, then that would cause serious problems for many species on the planet, wouldn't it?
since it will only be for a couple of weeks, I personally doubt any species will go extinct, though there is that possibillity, but the most major problems I think will be cat-animals, bats, snakes and other nocturnal creatures, us humans and other non-nocturnal creatures will simply struggle a bit more with falling asleep (of course a major problem for some animals in and of itself).
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On January 21 2011 17:34 Empyrean wrote:From wikipedia: Show nested quote +The most widely-accepted mechanism for the origin of long-duration GRBs is the collapsar model,[56] in which the core of an extremely massive, low-metallicity, rapidly-rotating star collapses into a black hole in the final stages of its evolution. Matter near the star's core rains down towards the center and swirls into a high-density accretion disk. The infall of this material into a black hole drives a pair of relativistic jets out along the rotational axis, which pummel through the stellar envelope and eventually break through the stellar surface and radiate as gamma rays.
Oh I did read that, for some reason I thought you and MageSoren were talking about something else. Fortunately Betelgeuse is a lot smaller than the kind of stars you need for those hypernovae. It still would be pretty sweet to see a nearby supernova though.
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as a physics nerd: what empyrean said
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On January 21 2011 17:47 Roblin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:08 numLoCK wrote:
That would be interesting, but your source doesn't seem like something I'd believe in right away.
If it were true, and it means that we won't have night, then that would cause serious problems for many species on the planet, wouldn't it? since it will only be for a couple of weeks, I personally doubt any species will go extinct, though there is that possibillity, but the most major problems I think will be cat-animals, bats, snakes and other nocturnal creatures, us humans and other non-nocturnal creatures will simply struggle a bit more with falling asleep (of course a major problem for some animals in and of itself).
At least try to read some of the thread before posting :/
Quite simply, nothing of the sort will ever happen.
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On January 21 2011 17:46 Icx wrote:
yes you are right, that probably was a bit of a silly question.
But for some reason when I read that betelgeuze is 640 lightyears from earth I didn't realize it would be close to impossible to actually measure it from that star itself.
(well I may sound stupid again, but I guess even if they had the technology a long time ago, the thing used to measure (can't think of the english name atm) that would probably still be on it's way to there
Any measuring device we have, no matter how far it is from earth, can only send a signal back to earth at the speed of light. And I'm pretty sure Voyager has not even left our solar system yet, so the point is pretty much moot regardless.
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Did you guys know 1988 film Beetlejuice name is inspired by BETELGEUSE.
"The star's unusual name inspired the 1988 film Beetlejuice, and script writer Michael McDowell was impressed at how many people made the connection. He added they had received a suggestion the sequel be named Sanduleak-69 202 after the former star of SN 1987A."
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*gasp*
User was temp banned for this post.
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The chances that BeteIgeuse goes supernova in our lifetime aren't nil, but not that high either.
We can't even pinpoint the exact mass of BeteIgeuse at the moment let alone know what is going on inside the core of the star, i.e. the part that matters, other than that it has probably already ignited helium burning.
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That's what I meant when I said that I'm gonna sound stupid again :p
When I think about that sort of stuff I always forget things like that.
@ MassHysteria
I added your post to the OP
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On January 21 2011 17:39 Empyrean wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:37 Icx wrote:
can you clarify this for me:
Is the observation of betelgeuze losing mass actually an observation off the star itself or basicly from the light that we get from it (I have no idea how they actually measure those things).
So let's say this happened a bit more then 600 years ago, it's actually possible (altough we would have to be incredibly lucky) to see this in 2012 or later.
Or is this an observation of the star itself, and even if this happens in 2012 it will still take 600+ years for that light to reach earth? Think critically about this one for a second; light is currently the fastest known measurable speed. Unless we have a magic way to learn about distant objects - faster than the speed of light, then there's no way we can measure properties of distant objects faster than we would be able to observe radiation coming from it.
essentially meaning: what we see is happening 600 lightyears away actually happened 600 years ago, it just took the light 600 years to come here and tell us.
so when we say "that star 600 light years away will go supernova in about 2 years" that actually means "that star 600 light years away went supernova ≈598 years ago, but we will not be affected by it for another 2 years since the effects wont reach us until then"
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I wish there were multiple Empyrean's to go around for all internet discussion venues related to this type of sensationalist pseudo-science reporting.
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On January 21 2011 17:50 Empyrean wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:47 Roblin wrote:On January 21 2011 17:08 numLoCK wrote:
That would be interesting, but your source doesn't seem like something I'd believe in right away.
If it were true, and it means that we won't have night, then that would cause serious problems for many species on the planet, wouldn't it? since it will only be for a couple of weeks, I personally doubt any species will go extinct, though there is that possibillity, but the most major problems I think will be cat-animals, bats, snakes and other nocturnal creatures, us humans and other non-nocturnal creatures will simply struggle a bit more with falling asleep (of course a major problem for some animals in and of itself). At least try to read some of the thread before posting :/ Quite simply, nothing of the sort will ever happen.
sorry, just playing the "what if" game
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On January 21 2011 17:19 Empyrean wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth. And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion.
any star? you mean like, it would be ridiculous for the one that i see out my window at noon to affect the global temperature of this planet?
i know people are saying that you are some sort of genius/wizard, but for stating such a simple fact your logic seems to be flawed
:/
in the instance that you still dont understand, the sun is a star that affects the global temperature
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On January 21 2011 17:58 Corvette wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:19 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth. And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion. any star? you mean like, it would be ridiculous for the one that i see out my window at noon to affect the global temperature of this planet? i know people are saying that you are some sort of genius/wizard, but for stating such a simple fact your logic seems to be flawed :/ in the instance that you still dont understand, the sun is a star that affects the global temperature
Sorry, I meant any star except for our sun.
EDIT: Don't be a douchebag.
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On January 21 2011 17:58 Corvette wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:19 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth. And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion. any star? you mean like, it would be ridiculous for the one that i see out my window at noon to affect the global temperature of this planet? i know people are saying that you are some sort of genius/wizard, but for stating such a simple fact your logic seems to be flawed :/ in the instance that you still dont understand, the sun is a star that affects the global temperature
Should be pretty obvious he meant any star aside from our own...
edit: yup, see above, lol
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On January 21 2011 17:54 Roblin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:39 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:37 Icx wrote:
can you clarify this for me:
Is the observation of betelgeuze losing mass actually an observation off the star itself or basicly from the light that we get from it (I have no idea how they actually measure those things).
So let's say this happened a bit more then 600 years ago, it's actually possible (altough we would have to be incredibly lucky) to see this in 2012 or later.
Or is this an observation of the star itself, and even if this happens in 2012 it will still take 600+ years for that light to reach earth? Think critically about this one for a second; light is currently the fastest known measurable speed. Unless we have a magic way to learn about distant objects - faster than the speed of light, then there's no way we can measure properties of distant objects faster than we would be able to observe radiation coming from it. essentially meaning: what we see is happening 600 lightyears away actually happened 600 years ago, it just took the light 600 years to come here and tell us. so when we say "that star 600 light years away will go supernova in about 2 years" that actually means "that star 600 light years away went supernova ≈598 years ago, but we will not be affected by it for another 2 years since the effects wont reach us until then"
yes but in your hypothetical, we can't know that it went away "598 years ago" because the necessary information travels towards us at light speed, thus information of the explosion = the explosion itself and nothing prior
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On January 21 2011 17:54 Roblin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:39 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:37 Icx wrote:
can you clarify this for me:
Is the observation of betelgeuze losing mass actually an observation off the star itself or basicly from the light that we get from it (I have no idea how they actually measure those things).
So let's say this happened a bit more then 600 years ago, it's actually possible (altough we would have to be incredibly lucky) to see this in 2012 or later.
Or is this an observation of the star itself, and even if this happens in 2012 it will still take 600+ years for that light to reach earth? Think critically about this one for a second; light is currently the fastest known measurable speed. Unless we have a magic way to learn about distant objects - faster than the speed of light, then there's no way we can measure properties of distant objects faster than we would be able to observe radiation coming from it. essentially meaning: what we see is happening 600 lightyears away actually happened 600 years ago, it just took the light 600 years to come here and tell us. so when we say "that star 600 light years away will go supernova in about 2 years" that actually means "that star 600 light years away went supernova ≈598 years ago, but we will not be affected by it for another 2 years since the effects wont reach us until then"
Exactly this was the first thought I had when reading the article. It is (would be) cool to experience something like that, even if we could only see a star light up for a while and then just die...
I love the idea of experiencing something that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago ^^
On January 21 2011 17:54 hifriend wrote:
I wish there were multiple Empyrean's to go around for all internet discussion venues related to this type of sensationalist pseudo-science reporting.
that would be awesome ^^
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Considering the last bright Supernovae were seen in 1572 and 1604 we are overdue for another one, and it certainly would be a feast for astronomers.
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From what I remember reading the super nova won't be that much absurdly brighter than the current star is. It's likely to be the brightest nova the earth has seen for a couple billion years, but I don't think it's gonna rival the sun. I even don't think the night sky will even we significantly brighter unless it's a moonless night.
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All the sun worshippers are gonna be real confused now. Or happy, I can't figure out which.
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On January 21 2011 17:58 Corvette wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:19 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth. And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion. any star? you mean like, it would be ridiculous for the one that i see out my window at noon to affect the global temperature of this planet? i know people are saying that you are some sort of genius/wizard, but for stating such a simple fact your logic seems to be flawed :/ in the instance that you still dont understand, the sun is a star that affects the global temperature
I believe he meant other than the sun, and just for the sake of speculation, im gonna do some math on how light intensive a star would be if it was as luminous as R136a1, the most luminuos star we know of (I didnt search much, could be wrong) with an absolute magnitude of -12.5, for those that wont bother checking up what that means, its ≈100.000.000.000.000.000 (a hundred million billion!) times more luminous as the sun, and lets check how much it would affect the tempreture on earth (compared to the sun) if it was on the same distance as our closest star (other than the sun) which is 4.2 light years
luminosity dissipates at a rate of the distance squared (or 1/(distance^2)), for example, if you have a flash light and put it on distance x from a flat surface, it will shed its light on a certain area, lets define this as a.
if you put it on distance 2*x, then the light will spread twice as far in both "height" and "width", meaning it will illuminate an area that is a^2, meaning that every cm^2 is illuminated by less light, see the logic?
we have a very nifty little measure of length, its called astronomical units, and its the distance from the sun to the earth, nice for moments like this eh?
one light year is 63240 astronomical units (picture that in your mind, our closest star is 63240 * 4.2 = 265608 times farther away from us as the sun, and the sun is plenty far away already) so if the amount of light (or photons or heat if you will) that we receive today from the sun is L (as in light) then that theoretical star would give us ((10^17L)/(265608)^2) or rounded ≈1417482
so when we have some facts on the table, if you were to put the strongest star in our known universe, and put it were our closest star is, then yes, our temperature would increase quite a bit, by a few thousand degrees as a matter of fact. but when we look at actual reality, the brightest star on the nightsky is Sirius, in the lion, which is ≈(1 / 10.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000) (one ten-million-billion-billionth!) of the suns appearent magnitude, it seems extremely unlikely that any star will ever affect our temperature in any significant way other than the sun during the closest 100 generations or so.
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That would be amazing to see when it goes supernova. Although it's really hard to predict when it will, I just hope that it at least happens in my lifetime.
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Astrology is just so fascinating, don't you agree?
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On January 21 2011 19:09 EchoZ wrote:
Astrology is just so fascinating, don't you agree?
sorry, cant resist.
"Astrology is a set of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of celestial bodies (the Sun, Moon, and planets) and related details can provide information about personality, human affairs and other "earthly" matters."
- wikipedia
I believe you are either trolling or meant astronomy, not astrology the difference is one is science, the other hearsay.
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...Does this mean ford Prefect isn't going to make it to earth before the Vogon's destroy it to make way for that hyperspace bypass?
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+ Show Spoiler +On January 21 2011 18:03 xlep wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:54 Roblin wrote:On January 21 2011 17:39 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:37 Icx wrote:
can you clarify this for me:
Is the observation of betelgeuze losing mass actually an observation off the star itself or basicly from the light that we get from it (I have no idea how they actually measure those things).
So let's say this happened a bit more then 600 years ago, it's actually possible (altough we would have to be incredibly lucky) to see this in 2012 or later.
Or is this an observation of the star itself, and even if this happens in 2012 it will still take 600+ years for that light to reach earth? Think critically about this one for a second; light is currently the fastest known measurable speed. Unless we have a magic way to learn about distant objects - faster than the speed of light, then there's no way we can measure properties of distant objects faster than we would be able to observe radiation coming from it. essentially meaning: what we see is happening 600 lightyears away actually happened 600 years ago, it just took the light 600 years to come here and tell us. so when we say "that star 600 light years away will go supernova in about 2 years" that actually means "that star 600 light years away went supernova ≈598 years ago, but we will not be affected by it for another 2 years since the effects wont reach us until then" Exactly this was the first thought I had when reading the article. It is (would be) cool to experience something like that, even if we could only see a star light up for a while and then just die... I love the idea of experiencing something that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago ^^ Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:54 hifriend wrote:
I wish there were multiple Empyrean's to go around for all internet discussion venues related to this type of sensationalist pseudo-science reporting. that would be awesome ^^
He'd use Sacrifice of orm and blow up every one thread he's fighting in.
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On January 21 2011 17:37 Icx wrote:
can you clarify this for me:
Is the observation of betelgeuze losing mass actually an observation off the star itself or basicly from the light that we get from it (I have no idea how they actually measure those things).
So let's say this happened a bit more then 600 years ago, it's actually possible (altough we would have to be incredibly lucky) to see this in 2012 or later.
Or is this an observation of the star itself, and even if this happens in 2012 it will still take 600+ years for that light to reach earth?
Well I don't know what other type of observations there could be. I presume that observations are made using a telescope. What we see through a telescope is light. So yea, at the moment that you wrote that post, it may have gone supernova already. When this information will reach Earth, that's hard to say.
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1300 light years from earth means you won't know about it until 1300 years from when it happens, So it is completely irrelevant to us.
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On January 21 2011 19:59 pfods wrote:
1300 light years from earth means you won't know about it until 1300 years from when it happens, So it is completely irrelevant to us.
uh... that's not how it works either... what we see in the sky right now is the star 1300 years ago in that case. if it happened to explode 1300 years ago and we're exactly 1301 light years way, we'd find out about it a year from now. no way to tell before the time that we find out either. so its not like
1. star explodes, we find out
2. 1300 years later we see the result of what we found out already 1300 years prior
^ WRONG
its actually just
1. we see the star explode, we know that the event happened however many years ago = how many lightyears far away it is
so if you're arguing that it's irrelevant to us because our predictions are basing this on the "current" state of the star, that's not true because the "current" state of the star to us is how it was 1300 years ago at its point in space.
though really its all semantics because there is no such thing as true simultaneity anyhow, its all relative to where you are and how fast you're going
edit: in the case that "it" in your sentence is referring to the distance from earth, then yeah i think i might get what you're trying to say but you worded it horribly lol
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that would be pretty cool to randomly have a week with no nights
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Canada8031 Posts
On January 21 2011 19:40 craz3d wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:37 Icx wrote:
can you clarify this for me:
Is the observation of betelgeuze losing mass actually an observation off the star itself or basicly from the light that we get from it (I have no idea how they actually measure those things).
So let's say this happened a bit more then 600 years ago, it's actually possible (altough we would have to be incredibly lucky) to see this in 2012 or later.
Or is this an observation of the star itself, and even if this happens in 2012 it will still take 600+ years for that light to reach earth? Well I don't know what other type of observations there could be. I presume that observations are made using a telescope. What we see through a telescope is light. So yea, at the moment that you wrote that post, it may have gone supernova already. When this information will reach Earth, that's hard to say.
Most deep space observation is done using some sort of radio telescope. Stars emit a lot of radiation, and most of this isn't in the range of visible light. You can infer a lot of data from the type and intensity of radiation that comes from a star. That said, the speed of light is essentially the universe's speed limit, so it's not like these other types of EMR are reaching us any faster than visible light would.
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no night time would be awesome. I'm down
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Another contradiction Wiki has with this article is the brightness of the supernova. "The supernova could brighten to an apparent magnitude of −12 over a two-week period, then remain at that intensity for 2 to 3 months before rapidly dimming."
The moon never gets brighter than -13 and the Sun is at -26.7 (roughly 400,000 times as bright).
So every night might be as bright as a full moon, and the moon might make it brighter still. But you'll still be getting 200,000 times less light than during the day - hardly enough to call it a day without end.
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Sounds like an exiting event if it has any true merit, I'm fascinated with supernovas and black holes, I think they are one of the most incredible forces in the universe.
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Main thing I'm taking from this is that Betelgeuse is an unstable star, which may or may not go supernova within the next million years or so.
I'm just hoping it's gonna blow up within my life time.. Would love to see a supernova with my own eyes.
Aren't supernovas quite frequent within single galaxies though? - Even though they're not all visible to us.
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Thx Empyrean for sorting this out. If it do occur in my lifetime I hope it will be noticeable because stuff like that is really cool would be so awesome to stay up all night in the light and have a camp fire experience
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Yeah, the idea with Betelgeuse is we don't often get to witness big supernovae with our naked eyes in the sky. Let alone lose a star in one of the most recognizable constellations.
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On January 21 2011 17:59 Empyrean wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:58 Corvette wrote:On January 21 2011 17:19 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth. And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion. any star? you mean like, it would be ridiculous for the one that i see out my window at noon to affect the global temperature of this planet? i know people are saying that you are some sort of genius/wizard, but for stating such a simple fact your logic seems to be flawed :/ in the instance that you still dont understand, the sun is a star that affects the global temperature Sorry, I meant any star except for our sun. EDIT: Don't be a douchebag.
Jesus christ, its like the fucking talking wikipedia over here. If you get proven wrong, does your head collapse on itself?
User was temp banned for this post.
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On January 22 2011 00:29 Mannequin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:59 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:58 Corvette wrote:On January 21 2011 17:19 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth. And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion. any star? you mean like, it would be ridiculous for the one that i see out my window at noon to affect the global temperature of this planet? i know people are saying that you are some sort of genius/wizard, but for stating such a simple fact your logic seems to be flawed :/ in the instance that you still dont understand, the sun is a star that affects the global temperature Sorry, I meant any star except for our sun. EDIT: Don't be a douchebag. Jesus christ, its like the fucking talking wikipedia over here. If you get proven wrong, does your head collapse on itself?
I'm not quite sure if you're trying to offend him, or if this is some kind of compliment, but either way, there shouldn't have to be a need for "talking wikipedias" like him if people were at least a little bit educated and knew a little something about the universe they actually live in. It's quite funny that (probably) 99.5% of people imagine black holes as being giant space vacuum cleaners.
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On January 21 2011 18:58 Roblin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:58 Corvette wrote:On January 21 2011 17:19 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth. And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion. any star? you mean like, it would be ridiculous for the one that i see out my window at noon to affect the global temperature of this planet? i know people are saying that you are some sort of genius/wizard, but for stating such a simple fact your logic seems to be flawed :/ in the instance that you still dont understand, the sun is a star that affects the global temperature I believe he meant other than the sun, and just for the sake of speculation, im gonna do some math on how light intensive a star would be if it was as luminous as R136a1, the most luminuos star we know of (I didnt search much, could be wrong) with an absolute magnitude of -12.5, for those that wont bother checking up what that means, its ≈100.000.000.000.000.000 (a hundred million billion!) times more luminous as the sun, and lets check how much it would affect the tempreture on earth (compared to the sun) if it was on the same distance as our closest star (other than the sun) which is 4.2 light years luminosity dissipates at a rate of the distance squared (or 1/(distance^2)), for example, if you have a flash light and put it on distance x from a flat surface, it will shed its light on a certain area, lets define this as a. if you put it on distance 2*x, then the light will spread twice as far in both "height" and "width", meaning it will illuminate an area that is a^2, meaning that every cm^2 is illuminated by less light, see the logic? we have a very nifty little measure of length, its called astronomical units, and its the distance from the sun to the earth, nice for moments like this eh? one light year is 63240 astronomical units (picture that in your mind, our closest star is 63240 * 4.2 = 265608 times farther away from us as the sun, and the sun is plenty far away already) so if the amount of light (or photons or heat if you will) that we receive today from the sun is L (as in light) then that theoretical star would give us ((10^17L)/(265608)^2) or rounded ≈1417482 so when we have some facts on the table, if you were to put the strongest star in our known universe, and put it were our closest star is, then yes, our temperature would increase quite a bit, by a few thousand degrees as a matter of fact. but when we look at actual reality, the brightest star on the nightsky is Sirius, in the lion, which is ≈(1 / 10.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000) (one ten-million-billion-billionth!) of the suns appearent magnitude, it seems extremely unlikely that any star will ever affect our temperature in any significant way other than the sun during the closest 100 generations or so.
I think some values here are incorrect.. I believe the highest luminosity of a star is roughly 10^6 times the luminosity of the sun. Thus, since flux scales as 1/r^2, such a star at a distance of 1000 times the sun would heat our planet as much as the sun does.
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Awesome. I am up for it. Would be cool to have no night at all. Plus it would look cool. Hopefully it will occur in 2012-2015, I'll probably forget it about it if it goes longer :/
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I hope this happens in my lifetime. Sadly it probably wont =(
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Guess we'll know how it feels like to be on Tatooine.
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On January 22 2011 00:29 Mannequin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:59 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:58 Corvette wrote:On January 21 2011 17:19 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth. And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion. any star? you mean like, it would be ridiculous for the one that i see out my window at noon to affect the global temperature of this planet? i know people are saying that you are some sort of genius/wizard, but for stating such a simple fact your logic seems to be flawed :/ in the instance that you still dont understand, the sun is a star that affects the global temperature Sorry, I meant any star except for our sun. EDIT: Don't be a douchebag. Jesus christ, its like the fucking talking wikipedia over here. If you get proven wrong, does your head collapse on itself?
lol? Certain things you don't have to explicitly state if they are commonly understood. Like the fact that our sun is a star. Why are you trying to be a douche again?
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On January 22 2011 01:45 Bleak wrote:
Guess we'll know how it feels like to be on Tatooine.
You're looking towards a very bleak future.....
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There may also be no night during that timeframe
That would be pretty sick to have but it may effect a lot of animals and agriculture.
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United States1719 Posts
so my astronomy professor said that Betelgeuse is indeed very close to collapsing and creating a supernova... but a star's life spans across billions of years, and that "very close to collapsing" is a very relative term. This means it could happen anytime during the next thousand years, and we have no way of getting it down any more precisely
edit:: that was my astronomy professor from high school, and I am now a senior in college... it's been 5 years since he said that and Betelguse hasn't exploded yet so I have my reasons to believe that this has but the slightest chance of happening anytime soon. If you guys wanna see Betelguse, look up the Orion constellation and find it in the night sky (his belt should be an easy guide to finding him) and look at the top left star. You can notice with your naked eye that it is alot redder than other stars in the sky
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Canada7170 Posts
On January 22 2011 01:55 rotinegg wrote:
so my astronomy professor said that Betelgeuse is indeed very close to collapsing and creating a supernova... but a star's life spans across billions of years, and that "very close to collapsing" is a very relative term. This means it could happen anytime during the next thousand years, and we have no way of getting it down any more precisely
edit:: that was my astronomy professor from high school, and I am now a senior in college... it's been 5 years since he said that and Betelguse hasn't exploded yet so I have my reasons to believe that this has but the slightest chance of happening anytime soon. If you guys wanna see Betelguse, look up the Orion constellation (his belt should be an easy guide to finding him) and look at the top left star, and you can notice with your naked eye that it is alot redder than other stars in the sky
It's more or less random, isn't it? At least that's all I can recall from statistical mechanics.
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mmm
that should have actually have acourred right now... we just waitig for the light??
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United States1719 Posts
On January 22 2011 01:59 mikeymoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2011 01:55 rotinegg wrote:
so my astronomy professor said that Betelgeuse is indeed very close to collapsing and creating a supernova... but a star's life spans across billions of years, and that "very close to collapsing" is a very relative term. This means it could happen anytime during the next thousand years, and we have no way of getting it down any more precisely
edit:: that was my astronomy professor from high school, and I am now a senior in college... it's been 5 years since he said that and Betelguse hasn't exploded yet so I have my reasons to believe that this has but the slightest chance of happening anytime soon. If you guys wanna see Betelguse, look up the Orion constellation (his belt should be an easy guide to finding him) and look at the top left star, and you can notice with your naked eye that it is alot redder than other stars in the sky It's more or less random, isn't it? At least that's all I can recall from statistical mechanics.
yea it could happen tomorrow, or a thousand years from tomorrow
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On January 22 2011 02:00 rotinegg wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2011 01:59 mikeymoo wrote:On January 22 2011 01:55 rotinegg wrote:
so my astronomy professor said that Betelgeuse is indeed very close to collapsing and creating a supernova... but a star's life spans across billions of years, and that "very close to collapsing" is a very relative term. This means it could happen anytime during the next thousand years, and we have no way of getting it down any more precisely
edit:: that was my astronomy professor from high school, and I am now a senior in college... it's been 5 years since he said that and Betelguse hasn't exploded yet so I have my reasons to believe that this has but the slightest chance of happening anytime soon. If you guys wanna see Betelguse, look up the Orion constellation (his belt should be an easy guide to finding him) and look at the top left star, and you can notice with your naked eye that it is alot redder than other stars in the sky It's more or less random, isn't it? At least that's all I can recall from statistical mechanics. yea it could happen tomorrow, or a thousand years from tomorrow
The phases leading up to a supernova in current models are well defined: If we could actually look into the star, we would most likely have no problem to pin down the date of the actual explosion down to a small timeframe.
The problem is, that the actual information we get from stars other than the sun is very limited. Betelgeuze is one of the few stars that can actually be resolved by modern instruments. Still, what you can see is only the star's surface, and it can take a long time until the developments in the core actually influence the surface of the star.
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Somebody warn Zaphod and Ford!
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I've been looking forward to witnessing a possible Betelgeuse supernova for years. The fact of the matter is that it could happen any time, but it could just as easily happen hundreds of years from now. It's unlikely we'll see it before we die, but man it would be cool.
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2012 bullshit again lol. It actually may not happen even by the year 1002012.
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On January 22 2011 00:29 Mannequin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:59 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:58 Corvette wrote:On January 21 2011 17:19 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth. And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion. any star? you mean like, it would be ridiculous for the one that i see out my window at noon to affect the global temperature of this planet? i know people are saying that you are some sort of genius/wizard, but for stating such a simple fact your logic seems to be flawed :/ in the instance that you still dont understand, the sun is a star that affects the global temperature Sorry, I meant any star except for our sun. EDIT: Don't be a douchebag. Jesus christ, its like the fucking talking wikipedia over here. If you get proven wrong, does your head collapse on itself? User was temp banned for this post.
Oh come on, Empyrean was right (and intelligent) in everything he said up to that point and then someone calls him out on a common sense error and then ALSO proceeds to tell him what the Sun is? He didn't get proven wrong, the guy was splitting hairs for the sake of argument unrelated to the topic at hand.
On-topic, it is disheartening to see more of this ridiculous astronomy/astrology based journalism lately that is completely baseless and exaggerated by shit reporters. On the other hand, it's always great to see people that know what's actually up spreading the wealth. I'm glad most people on here are ready to ask questions and clarify things about subjects that might be over their heads, albeit still interesting to them.
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On January 21 2011 17:36 Haemonculus wrote:
Woah. What do you think a few weeks of no darkness will do to the environment? That's got to screw with your circadian rhythm...
I wonder if any animals or plants would get screwed up by that? Like nocturnal hunters/scavengers might be in trouble, o.o;
The earth already experiences phases of 24 hour daylight, and 24 hour darkness for weeks on end way up in the northwest territories.
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Technically, since betelgeuse is estimated to be (650?) light years away, this would all be past tense. It would have had to already go supernova in 1362 for us to see it in 2012.
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Empyrean is extremely attached to this thread. I agree with him though.
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Now all I need is a couple a droids and a speedster and I can be skywalker
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On January 21 2011 17:28 jstar wrote:
I would love to see a super nova, and then suddenly becoming dark again knowing that a black hole is formed. If it ends up being a super massive black hole, we're screwed right?
a super massive black hole cant form from a star, they form over millions of years as galaxies form. the heaviest objects naturally move to the center and slowly smaller blackholes and lage stars come together, the black holes merge and gobble up everything nearby until they become super massive.
Also when they talk about it going supernova in 2012, they mean that we would observe it then and it happened a long time ago. It could have already gone supernova a thousand years ago (its about 1300 light years away) and we wouldn't have a clue until the light reaches us.
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On January 22 2011 02:27 lololol wrote:
2012 bullshit again lol. It actually may not happen even by the year 1002012.
It won't last another 100,000 years. Its in the final phase of its life, it will go supermova (from out point of view) very soon. Maximum within a few thousand years, more likely very very soon.
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In fact, a neutrino shower could be beneficial to Earth. According to Carter this "star stuff" makes up the universe. "It literally makes things like gold, silver - all the heavy elements - even things like uranium.....
I'd hate to tell the guys at http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=176204 that, lol.
That being said, a lot of this stuff is speculation considering that no one knows exactly when this sun will supernova or its effects on Earth lightyears away from us.
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In fact, a neutrino shower could be beneficial to Earth. According to Carter this "star stuff" makes up the universe. "It literally makes things like gold, silver - all the heavy elements - even things like uranium.....
I'd hate to tell the guys at http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=176204 that, lol.
That being said, a lot of this stuff is speculation considering that no one knows exactly when this sun will supernova or its effects on Earth lightyears away from us.[/QUOTE]
On January 22 2011 03:40 eXigent. wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:36 Haemonculus wrote:
Woah. What do you think a few weeks of no darkness will do to the environment? That's got to screw with your circadian rhythm...
I wonder if any animals or plants would get screwed up by that? Like nocturnal hunters/scavengers might be in trouble, o.o; The earth already experiences phases of 24 hour daylight, and 24 hour darkness for weeks on end way up in the northwest territories.
Yes I find that interesting too. While the planet does have that 24 hour daylight in the areas closer to the polar regions, animals anywhere else, such as closer to the equator will probably not be used to this sort of thing...
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The statistical probability of this is insanely low, there has never really been a scientific tracking of any stars going supernova before, so it's pretty hard to even estimate when(if) it will happen. And the month that it happens in (if it does happen) would dictate the effect of it.
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What a wonderful time we live in =)
The first thing that came to my mind when i read the title was that the sun would somehow seperate its mass. God im dumb.
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On January 22 2011 03:40 goiflin wrote:
Technically, since betelgeuse is estimated to be (650?) light years away, this would all be past tense. It would have had to already go supernova in 1362 for us to see it in 2012.
Holy shit, didnt even think about this...
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I love the fact that people get excited over having no night. Over here we just call that the month of June.
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All they know is that it will happen sometime in the next ~million years, so there probably won't even be humans left (on Earth at least) by the time it happens.
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I'm glad people called BS on this so quickly and articulated the calling of BS much better than I could have.
Whoever put this article up probably only saw the words "Supernova, second sun, explosion and scientist" and boom, we have a story.
I mean it does sound like some exiting shit.
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Remember that lady that bought the sun? well...what if she buys the supernova then claims all the "star stuff" showering down to earth was hers...profit?
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On January 22 2011 03:40 goiflin wrote:
Technically, since betelgeuse is estimated to be (650?) light years away, this would all be past tense. It would have had to already go supernova in 1362 for us to see it in 2012.
I like this way of thinking. It's intriguing to think that we are looking into the past whenever we look into space.
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For people interested in scientific news and discoverys that dont wanna deal with all the silly misconceptions and and sensationalism that alot of news sites create, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/ is a quite good physics blog, mainly focused on astrophysics but has entrys on everything done by a quite accomplished physicist with good explanations for people not well versed in physics
Has an article on this topic
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maybe we will obtain super powers
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It'd be awesome if one day we became so astrologically sound that we could predict the supply of gold based on future supernovas. I can't wait to see how this all plays out. No/minimal darkness? That's a once-in-a-species kind of event.
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On January 21 2011 17:19 Empyrean wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth. And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion.
Well, except our star, eh? It does have a rather big impact on the temperatures here.
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On January 22 2011 06:39 Simplistik wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:19 Empyrean wrote:On January 21 2011 17:16 ZergOwaR wrote:kinda cool though even if we get light.. how much extra heat would this mean? its pretty far away so most likely not much.. but its a thing to consider with all this global warming and all None. We're going to experience an increased neutrino flux which is going to have virtually no physical effect on Earth. And for any star to be able to affect global temperatures is an absolutely ridiculous notion. Well, except our star, eh? It does have a rather big impact on the temperatures here.
Keep reading, he corrected himself after someone else made a snarky comment.
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I'm an avid astronomer and actually own a large telescope for stargazing whenever I get the chance.
Betelgeuse is a gorgeous ruby in the sky, definitely one of my favorite, on par with Antares in its obvious coloration. When it explodes, it will be the astronomy event of the millennium.
Sadly, these articles pop up about once a month. Betelgeuse COULD go supernova in our lifetime...or a few HUNDRED thousand years from now. I remember last year there was an article about the diameter of Betelgeuse changing (shrinking)...everybody thought it was going to go!....then nothing.
Interesting fact, though. Betelgeuse is the only other star (besides our Sun) that we can directly image the surface of! Because of its distance combined with its size...
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On January 21 2011 17:20 MageSoren wrote:
If Betelgeuse actually goes supernova, I'm more so concerned if it will create a gamma-ray burst and if it does create such an event, hopefully the burst isn't aimed directly towards us.....
for some reason I rofled at this because we would just get shit on so bad if that happened hahaha it'd be like yamato-cannoning a bacteria cell on a zergling
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Well at least the article of misinformation has inspired an interesting discussion, thank you Empryean, I've learned something new today.
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On January 22 2011 06:12 Kenderson wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2011 03:40 goiflin wrote:
Technically, since betelgeuse is estimated to be (650?) light years away, this would all be past tense. It would have had to already go supernova in 1362 for us to see it in 2012. I like this way of thinking. It's intriguing to think that we are looking into the past whenever we look into space.
When you think about it, everything you see and hear occured in the past. When you look at someone, you see them the way they were a teensy amount of time ago, not the way they are right now.
Time becomes such a cool concept when you start to learn more about physics and relativity. It becomes so hard to pin down a true "now", because your "now" is different from mine.
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Darn, for a second, i thought we were going to get a binary star system somehow...
But this is pretty cool.
Unfortunately, I'm guessing we won't see this in our lifetimes, all these cool things take forever, and we are speculating that betelgeuse "might" run out of fuel "soon"
My guess is these people work for blizzard and it's going to be a few hundred years, which would be nothing on the astronomical scale.
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Useful information: Many things in modern astronomy are based on models. Not scientific theories, but models. Models that actually change very often and rapidly. Even observations get corrected and adjusted a lot. Up until last year, our galaxy was thought of having 2 spiral arms, now it has four.
What this means is that when astrophysicists say something like: "betelgeuse will probably blow up soon relative to it's lifetime", they're actually making tons of assumptions about things which have no proven physical background (let's not talk about mathematical background, even theoretical physicists are notorious for sweeping mathematical technicalities under the rug ). Most stuff (My gut strongly says "everything" but I'm not quite sure) in astronomy is of empirical nature, and given the way we gather empirical data in astronomy it's not that hard to figure out that these models are not that accurate and that they have to change around a lot.
That doesn't mean that all of this is bogus of course. It's just that out of all things that have to do with physics, astronomy is by far the field which is the hardest to put research into. Simply because you can't just take a star and blow it up in an experiment. We can't even observe anything really well.
Astronomers do the best they can with what they have. Most models which describe certain things today in astronomy are probably pretty good, but you should take anything that any astronomer says when it comes to actual numbers with a grain of salt.
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I'm surprised they can predict a star's lifetime to within a period of years. I'd imagine they'd have to narrow it down to centuaries at the most accurate.
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Canada13389 Posts
Well apparently we're all going to die from a lack of sleep in 2012 thats what the mayans meant :D
On a serious note, even if it did go supernova we wouldnt see the light for 600 more years. Or maybe it went supernova 600 years ago? Who knows all that matters is that this won't actually impact any of us at all and this 2012 business is kinda dumb if you ask me.
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When I saw this thread title I thought it would be more bullshit about Jupiter igniting or some sort of planet x nonsense arriving just in time for 2012. I haven't seen a sensationalist supernova theory in a while.
Is there really anything else that needs to be said? Multiple posters explained how the 2012 stuff was bullshit, and the updated OP is mostly accurate now. Nothing the Astronomer they quoted said was wrong. Beetleguse will go supernova relatively soon astronomically speaking, it will be quite a spectacle, (I don't think there has been a nearer to earth supernova in recorded history IIRC, or at least not one of this magnitude) and it will prove to be ultimately harmless toward life on earth. It is highly unlikely we will observe it in our lifetimes, but on a astronomical scale its life is pretty much over.
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After reading some of the thread I have to say this is a bit of a let down. It would have been so awesome to be able to see two suns in the sky every day for a few weeks. But I guess I have to thank Empyrean for clearing up some bad journalism/made-up facts.
Hopefully we'll still get to see it at some point in our lifetimes though.
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Thread title is pretty misleading/terrible. Needs fixing.
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This has been known about for quite a while now though. Beteguese could have already gone Supernova and we wouldn't even know about it...Not sure if it'd really appear as a second sun, although I imagine they'd be some pretty funky things happening up in the magnetosphere.
Also, last estimate I heard is that it could go tomorrow or in 10,000 years, so don't hold your breath.
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im not saying it will happen, but how freakin cool would that be?
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On January 22 2011 12:29 neobowman wrote:
I'm surprised they can predict a star's lifetime to within a period of years. I'd imagine they'd have to narrow it down to centuaries at the most accurate.
I am pretty sure they can`t.
I bet that dialog between the scientist and the journalist guy went something like this.
S"So, based on our current models, we estimate that Betelgeuse could go supernova soon, speaking in astronomic timeframes."
J"What does that mean?"
S"Some time between now, and in a million years" (I obviously don´t know the exact timeframes since i am no astronomer.
J (smelling blood)"So it could go of in 2012?"
S"Well...yes, theoretically, but that is pretty improbable"
Journalist proceeds to write an article about how Betelgeuse will probably go Supernova in 2012 and be a second sun, and cover us in Gold and Uranium.
As to all that talking about time, and stuff that happened a long time ago, far far away, and so on: If you accept the relativistic idea that it is impossible for information to travel faster than light, it is most simple to assume that, while something technically happened a long time ago, it only becomes relevant once its event sphere, which propagates with the speed of light, reaches us, since before that time, it can not affect us. So until someone figures out some form of FTL communications, and we stay on earth stationary, it is much simpler to assume that stuff happens the moment we are able to watch it. That spares just a lot of confusion. Sure, you could always calculate the travel time of light, and try to feel smart by saying "Oh, yeah, the whateverthingy at betelgeuse of 14xx" "Hö, never heard of it" "Well how could you, we only just saw it yesterday" But this achieves nothing but produce confusion.
If you had observatories spread out over some lightyears, you would need to standardize the data regarding the time the light was send out, instead of when it arrives, but until then, the only reason to do so is to be a smartass. But having observatories spread out over several lightyears would probably produce a lot of other problems, too, so no need to worry until someone actually does that.
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Lol the article is so misleading.
I read it earlier (and the picture is pretty misleading too)
If Betelgeuse goes supernova, we'll see something in the sky that's a bit brighter than the moon. We'll probably see it during the day too, but it's not gonna be a second sun by any means.
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I thought the light from the star will take Betelgeuse 600 years to get here, so does that mean we will get a second sun in 600 years? Or am I an idiot and reading something wrong.
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United States24701 Posts
On January 22 2011 14:11 mixXanber wrote:
I thought the light from the star will take Betelgeuse 600 years to get here, so does that mean we will get a second sun in 600 years? Or am I an idiot and reading something wrong.
It does take the light a long time to get here but we don't know when the supernova will actually occur. If it occurred 599 years ago then we wouldn't have any way of knowing since that's 1 year less than the quote of 600 years for the time it takes light to reach Earth. In that example, in one year's time we will witness the change in the sky.
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The last link on the OP explains everything clearer. The article quoted in the OP is very misleading...
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Ya, "second sun" is total BS. The experts are saying it will be somewhere from slightly dimmer than the full moon to slightly brighter. That's ASTONISHINGLY bright for a star, but it's VERY far from daylight still.
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^ Ironic.
User was warned for this post
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At first I thought we were actually getting another sun, but then I read the thread and was like :/
Still, great read
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So basically we might get to see a Super Nova, in our lifetime, with no negative impacts on our planet. I'm very excited for this. Is betelgeuse in the range to create a black hole, I always thought stars required a certian amuont of mass to form a black hole.
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Upon reading this article I had a feeling about how shoddily written and seemed useless. I was glad to quickly see Empyrean's post.
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Meh, It would be nice to see a supernova, just because it's so rare, and hard to observe. But I'm afraid we are not going to be so lucky. I don't know how this 2012 thing came up, I wouldn't be surprised if the jurnalists made that number up. Or forced the scientist to agree on the possibility of this happening in 2 years. I am no physicist, so I don't exactly know everything about supernovas, but its hard to imagine that given all the speculative theorems surrounding it (its hard to study something that can be observed rarely, and is far far away ), I dont think that a physicist would make such precise assumptions so easily...
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Finally the a scientific probability of something interesting happening.
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In the last week I've read articles about how the zodiac 'needs a 13th sign' and how we will get a supernova in 2012. I think both were the result of the malicious reinterpretation of a respected scientist's words in order to sensationalize and sell newspapers. The scientist actually said this supernova could happen anytime in the next million years. Referring to the article about the zodiac, the astronomer in that interview only pointed out that the constellations have shifted in the last 3000+ years because of precession.
Its really disappointing to see these journalists waste scientists' time by conducting the interview and then leaving them with increased phone calls and a PR mess to clean up. Many scientists are naive and are just trying to educate anybody that is curious. I feel that journalists are just taking advantage of this and are failing their mandate to ALSO educate people about real news.
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hey man this article is pretty cool, will be interesting if we can see a second sun for a while. i wonder what will happen for two weeks!
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well i think its about time
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It would be mindblowingly cool if this actually occurs within our lifetimes. *fingers crossed*
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Good articles. Except for the sensationalist tripe ones that blow it out of proportion and say doomsday is upon us. Run for the hills. Fuck your wives for the last time.
It sure as hell won't turn day to night, but a star that massive really could be easily visible in the daytime. And who knows what it could mean in billions of years. This single star alone going supernova could cement life on other planets. It will create other stars for the night sky. It's not anything to fear. Now if it was our star, Sol, on the other hand... yeah. But we'd already be dead anyways.
But in other news, I hate the media. Skewing the words like that is just pathetic.
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On January 22 2011 14:11 mixXanber wrote:
I thought the light from the star will take Betelgeuse 600 years to get here, so does that mean we will get a second sun in 600 years? Or am I an idiot and reading something wrong.
it might have supernova'd 599 years ago for all we know.
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On January 23 2011 08:16 lindn wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2011 14:11 mixXanber wrote:
I thought the light from the star will take Betelgeuse 600 years to get here, so does that mean we will get a second sun in 600 years? Or am I an idiot and reading something wrong. it might have supernova'd 599 years ago for all we know.
I really really hope so. Except I think the estimated number is 640. So let's hope it went to hell 639 years ago. =D
Sure, it won't be a second sun, but it'll be a pretty bright dot in the sky.
Alright so let's assume that Beatleajfdlsa is exactly 640 lighyears away, and it blew up exactly 640 years ago minus one day.
So if someone happened to be looking at Beatlasdfoasdfj tomorrow night, they would theoretically be able to see the explosion in action, right?
I mean obviously since the distances are so far it wouldn't be a very dramatic explosion, but it's still something.
That'd be pretty baller.
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On January 21 2011 17:36 Haemonculus wrote:
Woah. What do you think a few weeks of no darkness will do to the environment? That's got to screw with your circadian rhythm...
I wonder if any animals or plants would get screwed up by that? Like nocturnal hunters/scavengers might be in trouble, o.o;
LOL! You might wanna check up on midnight sun on wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_sun
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On January 23 2011 11:08 Ghad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:36 Haemonculus wrote:
Woah. What do you think a few weeks of no darkness will do to the environment? That's got to screw with your circadian rhythm...
I wonder if any animals or plants would get screwed up by that? Like nocturnal hunters/scavengers might be in trouble, o.o; LOL! You might wanna check up on midnight sun on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_sun
Um, thanks?
I'm sure the creatures living in parts of the world which never experience this phenomenon are used to it.
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its daylight nonstop there because the sun never sets it rotates or earth does i dont care to know which one turns it wont make me a smarter person, but i know one spins, and since its so up north it does not set too ften. only a couple months of night time or something? then a bunch of day? i donno, anywho! i hope technology fails and all of earths money is lost, because money is a disease just like drug addiction. only difference is government gives us this drug(money) and weeee elooooooove it. :D haha were so screwed either way. yes this has barely anything to do with the topic, but i let my mind roam where it wants while typing on internet.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Neat.
I'm sure there will be thousands of doomsayers (just look at the LHC rabblerousing, the birds and fish dying, or even the oil spill). I'm also positive there will be riots and crazy people everywhere. Animals will probably be negatively affected, first one that comes to mind is bees who use the sun to navigate.
But goddamn would that be sick to watch.
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On January 21 2011 17:54 Okmanl wrote:
*gasp*
User was temp banned for this post.
Super deja vu right there haha...
I doubt the light intensity from a supernova will be anything near "a second sun." Most likely, it'll just look like a glowing blob in the night sky.
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On January 23 2011 11:01 Crazyeyes wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 08:16 lindn wrote:On January 22 2011 14:11 mixXanber wrote:
I thought the light from the star will take Betelgeuse 600 years to get here, so does that mean we will get a second sun in 600 years? Or am I an idiot and reading something wrong. it might have supernova'd 599 years ago for all we know. I really really hope so. Except I think the estimated number is 640. So let's hope it went to hell 639 years ago. =D Sure, it won't be a second sun, but it'll be a pretty bright dot in the sky. Alright so let's assume that Beatleajfdlsa is exactly 640 lighyears away, and it blew up exactly 640 years ago minus one day. So if someone happened to be looking at Beatlasdfoasdfj tomorrow night, they would theoretically be able to see the explosion in action, right? I mean obviously since the distances are so far it wouldn't be a very dramatic explosion, but it's still something. That'd be pretty baller.
It won't look like a supernova in a movie. A supernova lasts a very long time.
The most recent supernova that was visible in the milky way in the 1600's was visible during the day for three weeks, and visible at night with the naked eye at night for 18 months. When it explodes you'll have to try pretty hard to not notice it.
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Neat to imagine, but the chances of it happening in our lifetime I would say are very low.
Edit- btw Wishbone your post was very disappointing. I thought you were smarter than that. =]
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![[image loading]](http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/7512/sanstitrefn.png)
Oh no the best constellation will be mutilated 
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On January 21 2011 17:45 Mortality wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:14 Empyrean wrote:
EDIT: I'm not going to bother responding to any of this 2012 business either. Those of you who think something might actually happen are profoundly deluded. Not to derail the thread too much, but if too many people honestly believe something will happen then they may cause something to happen. Thankfully I believe that most people aren't that retarded. Edit: obviously people here can't cause a supernova there... should go without saying that when I say "cause something" I mean something a little more down to earth.
if this was the case we would have seen god by now....
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On January 22 2011 06:50 PiousMartyr wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2011 06:12 Kenderson wrote:On January 22 2011 03:40 goiflin wrote:
Technically, since betelgeuse is estimated to be (650?) light years away, this would all be past tense. It would have had to already go supernova in 1362 for us to see it in 2012. I like this way of thinking. It's intriguing to think that we are looking into the past whenever we look into space. When you think about it, everything you see and hear occured in the past. When you look at someone, you see them the way they were a teensy amount of time ago, not the way they are right now. Time becomes such a cool concept when you start to learn more about physics and relativity. It becomes so hard to pin down a true "now", because your "now" is different from mine.
Even more interesting once you get into the metaphysics of what time is. Unless your a presentist ofc, but that has its own problems outside of identifying the present
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Well, Empyrean is just saying that all this is total bullshit; some kind of science-tabloid crap.
So can we just close the thread then? If its entirely not true I don't really want to read about it.
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Good thing I just bought new Versace sunglasses.
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United States24701 Posts
On January 24 2011 12:29 Subversion wrote:
Well, Empyrean is just saying that all this is total bullshit; some kind of science-tabloid crap.
So can we just close the thread then? If its entirely not true I don't really want to read about it.
The title seems fairly misleading but the topic of the possibility of witnessing a supernova in the night (and possibly day) sky is still interesting. This thread has also cleared up a lot of misconceptions about the issue. You are of course free to not continue reading the thread.
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Betelgeuse Betelgeuse Betelgeuse!
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Misleading title
I'd like to witness a supernova.
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Reading this thread makes me want to go watch Sunshine for the 615616384th time ^^
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"Soon"
But this is a term relative to space time. Ergo- within the next million years or so. Incredibly good chance we won't live to see it, but I sure hope we do!
Also, there are a few recordings of this happening in recent history(the past 1500 years)
Google it up,sonnn
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EPT
