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185 Comments
- StuartGibson, on 06/14/2009, -1/+192Of course, by soon we mean "May already have exploded sometime in the last 430 years but it's quite far away".
- AtHomeBoy2000, on 06/10/2009, -9/+191Kirstie Alley?
- jayhawk88, on 06/10/2009, -1/+105"To see this change is very striking," said retired Berkeley physics professor Charles Townes, who won the 1964 Nobel Prize for inventing the laser.
Jebus, how'd you like to be this guy? "Oh hello, my name is Charles. I invented the laser." It's like a damn trump card for almost any situation.
"Hey I got a new Blu-Ray player for Christmas."
"You're welcome!"
"I'm thinking about getting lazik."
"That's great. Be sure to tell the doctor who does it you know the guy who made his livelihood possible."
"Price check at checkout."
"I AM YOUR LORD AND MASTER!" - heysuburbia, on 06/10/2009, -8/+101Fake News Site Spam, link to actual article:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/0 ... - Lordrust, on 06/10/2009, -5/+73quick get the red matter!!!
oh wait...
***** - MJG2007, on 06/10/2009, -1/+62She ain't that bright.
- imnojezus, on 06/10/2009, -1/+57Yes, but thanks to Einstein, it's perfectly ok to say it hasn't happened yet.
- antoniuk, on 06/10/2009, -10/+632012!!!
- vroom101, on 06/10/2009, -5/+51Bring. It. On.
- steger, on 06/10/2009, -3/+47It probably heard some Vogon poetry.
- MrSkills, on 06/10/2009, -4/+44So, how soon is soon in this context? 2 months? 500 years?
- yocouchdigga, on 06/10/2009, -2/+40Interstellar fireworks show? Count me in.
- inactive, on 06/10/2009, -3/+37Someone tell Ford Prefect to get out of there!!
- CharlesSaint, on 06/10/2009, -4/+35Because when I think astronomy, I think Fox News...
- CoD4, on 06/10/2009, -2/+31never forget!
- mizusajt, on 06/10/2009, -1/+30Betelgeuse
Betelgeuse
BETELGEUSE! - vizerei, on 06/10/2009, -0/+28If you read the article, you'll see that it said "We don't know"
- staffa, on 06/10/2009, -0/+27local group?
Generally when I hear local group in astrophysics it is in reference to the local group of galaxies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Group
Which is 10 million lightyears across.
600 lightyears is extremely close for a super nova, when it blows it will light up the night sky brighter than the moon and will easily be visible during the day. It will last for weeks if not months and it is not entirely unreasonable to be a little concerned about safety in such an event. - Jon211, on 06/10/2009, -0/+25As far as supernovae go it's damn close though, if it does go nova it will be the closest one in recorded history as far as I am aware.
The one in 1054 that formed the crab nebula was over 6,000 light years away but was still bright enough to be visible in daylight for weeks. - Rain12913, on 06/10/2009, -2/+24600 years ago, actually.
- Rain12913, on 06/10/2009, -2/+24Why is he getting buried? FTA:
"It's possible we're observing the beginning of Betelgeuse's final collapse now. If so, the star, which is 600 light-years away, will already have exploded"
The stars as we see them now, by naked eye or by telescope, are simply the images that were projected in the past when the light left their surface and began to travel towards the Earth. The farther away a star is, the older its image. Since Betelgeuse is 600 light-years away, the light that makes up the image that we currently see left Betelgeuse roughly 600 years ago, so if we observe Betelgeuse exploding in five years, it will actually have exploded in the 15th century. - vizerei, on 06/10/2009, -0/+21In Galactic terms 600 light years is your neighbor down the street. Please consider that the Milky Way is roughly 100,000 light years across, or 167 times the distance to Betelgeuse. So in terms of the power of a super nova, that's close enough to raise an eyebrow, and definitely be visible to the nakid eye.
- r2builder, on 06/10/2009, -2/+22It hasn't happened, as we haven't observed it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat - z3r0c0O1, on 06/10/2009, -1/+20Thankfully they added the line near the end: "[...] and perfectly safe". Too often you read this sort of thing threatening that we're about to be made extinct.
- had3l, on 06/10/2009, -0/+18So long and thanks for all the fish.
- Recluse84, on 06/10/2009, -4/+22Hasn't it technically already exploded?
- dshewmaker, on 06/10/2009, -0/+17They are making way for a Hyperspace bypass.
- jrm125, on 06/10/2009, -2/+16thumbs up for making me chuckle
- TheCollective00, on 06/10/2009, -0/+13Objects during the day would cast 2 shadows, one from the sun, and one from the supernova. It would be MUCH brighter than the moon at night.
- inactive, on 06/10/2009, -3/+16Micheal Bay is already planning a movie about this.
- raypricestandup, on 06/10/2009, -7/+19oh digg, how low can you go? A science article from Fox News? What's next an opinion piece from twitter?
- JakeBC, on 06/10/2009, -1/+12I hope we get to see this sometime within my lifetime. It would be an amazing sight.
- pagit, on 06/11/2009, -0/+11And finally, madame , a wafer-thin mint.
- StaticThunder, on 06/10/2009, -2/+12Noooo, not Orion's shoulder!
/bad science writing -- the iron doesn't run out, the silicon does. - maz2331, on 06/10/2009, -0/+10A lot brighter.
- imnojezus, on 06/11/2009, -0/+10Schrödinger aside, it's also impossible to determine if an event has occurred or not until some information from that occurrence reaches an observer. Since (for all intents and purposes) no information travels faster than light (such as gravity fluctuations, radio signals, and radiant energy) it is impossible to note that something has happened until that information reaches an observer. For instance, if the Sun were to suddenly disappear at this very instant, the Earth would continue in its orbit, and we'd still be getting suntans for 8 more minutes as the final information traveled through space to reach us. Even if there was a forward observer on Mercury who sent a signal as soon as they saw the Sun blink out, their signal would still be traveling through space at the same speed as the light from the sun. So for that period of time, it'd be ok to say that the Sun was indeed still there, because there is absolutely no way of knowing differently.
Crazy, huh? - CaptMonkey, on 06/10/2009, -1/+11It's also the brightest star in the most recognizable constellation in the sky... so there's that too.
- mitthuman, on 06/10/2009, -0/+9Spock better ***** stop it.
- rwhittak3, on 06/10/2009, -2/+11CNN already has that covered.
- cherwilco, on 06/11/2009, -0/+8yeah the first time this was on digg was like 600 years ago
- Bigballa5412, on 06/10/2009, -0/+8That would be really interesting to see. I'm almost having a hard time imagining something so far away rivaling the light source of our very own star.
- TheGreatZarquon, on 06/11/2009, -0/+8Sorry I'm late; all sorts of ghastly things cropping up at the last moment. How are we for time?
- inactive, on 06/10/2009, -0/+8With explosions!
- iskin, on 06/11/2009, -3/+1112-21-12?
- CelestialAvatar, on 06/11/2009, -0/+8The Sun is not massive enough to become a supernova.
- taikyokuken, on 06/11/2009, -0/+8Supernova outshine their host galaxy for 2-3 months, but the force from the explosion continues to spread outward for hundreds of years. It is so powerful that it smashes the surrounding gas that fills space so much, that it compresses the gas into new stars. This is one of the main creators of new stars in the universe.
- inkswamp, on 06/10/2009, -7/+15Fox News. I'm surprised they haven't tried to blame this on Obama already.
- ELee, on 06/11/2009, -1/+8Thanks for the link to Berkeley. Here are a couple others.
Betelgeuse: The incredible shrinking star? (10 June 2009) by Rachel Courtland
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17282-betelg ...
Hubble image of Betelgeuse (at Astronomy Picture of the Day)
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990605.html
Not much is known about what a star looks like before it goes supernova. We have not had one close to us in the Galaxy since 1604 - just before the use of telescopes. That one was 20,000 light years away and visible during the day. Supernova observed in other galaxies are too far away to see anything about the pre-supernova stars.
My bet would be that Betelgeuse has some kind of slow pulsation (like other giant stars), or some other effect of the outer envelop of the star (since the surface is the size of Jupiter's orbit). But if it really is collapsing before a supernova, a 15% change since 1993 is huge! The core might be collapsing even faster. But even at a rapid rate, it could be decades before the (~month-long) supernova flash is triggered. It will be interesting to see what happens to the gamma-ray flux in our solar system. (Look out, astronauts..) We should be okay on Earth, although it might affect satellite communications..
By the way.. all elements heavier than iron were created inside supernova, and most of those in an intense flux of neutrons in a single hour at the core of the explosion. If Betelgeuse blows up, this region of the galaxy will suddenly be richer in a few million billion billion tons of Gold. :-) - CraigHwk, on 06/10/2009, -0/+7Possible, but it could still be shrinking!
- piieerrrree, on 06/11/2009, -0/+6that show was awesome.
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