Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse

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Astronomers say Betelgeuse is acting like it’s going to explode. It’s actually getting dimmer. It’s normally around the 11th brightest star in the sky. It’s actually a variable star. Sometimes, it’s bright enough to be the 6th brightest star, a little brighter than Vega, but other times it’s only a little brighter than Deneb, which makes it about the 19th brightest.

Lately, though, it’s dimmed more than that. That has some people wondering if it’s about to explode.

Which makes me wonder why would Betelgeuse explode. Was it something that Trump tweeted? Maybe it’s been watching the impeachment. All that picked up steam around the same time the recent dimming of Betelgeuse started, and within the last week or two, when the actual House vote happened, Betelgeuse was dimmer than it had ever been.

The stars are as tired of Democrats and their silliness as the rest of us. More so. I mean, you and I aren’t about to explode. Well, if I read anything else a Democrat says, I might.

12 Comments

  3. Betelgeuse is the right shoulder of Orion, as we look at him. (His right, not our right.)

    What’s next? Well, expect Betelgeuse to brighten again in early 2020… though if it rebounds into negative magnitude territory past Rigel and Sirius, well, then things could get really exciting.

    For now though, we’re in a wait-and-see-mode for any New Year’s Eve fireworks from Betelgeuse. Such an occurrence would be bittersweet: we would be extraordinarily lucky to see Betelgeuse go supernova in our lifetime… but familiar Orion the Hunter would never look the same again.

    http://www.universetoday.com/144465/waiting-for-betelgeuse-whats-up-with-the-tempestuous-star/#more-144465

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    • With one exception, all of the main stars in Orion are bright young blue giants or supergiants, ranging in distance from Bellatrix (243 light-years) to Alnilam (1,359 light-years). The Orion Nebula is farther away than any of the naked eye stars at a distance of about 1,600 light-years. One light-year is the distance light travels in a single year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).

      The exception is the star Betelgeuse, which is a red giant and one of the largest stars known. It is also the only star in the sky large enough and close enough to have been imaged as a disk in the Hubble Space Telescope. Observers with a keen eye should be able to see the difference in color between Betelgeuse and all the other stars in Orion.

      https://www.space.com/16659-constellation-orion.html

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  7. Betelgeuse is 643 plus or minus 46 light-years away from Sol.

    That means – given lightspeed limits and all that sciencey stuff – that the dimming we are seeing now actually began some time in the fourteenth century or early fifteenth century.

    Happenings on Earth around that time include:
    1360 The Muslim rule in Spain is reduced to just the Emirate of Granada.
    1361 Another plague of Black Death sweeps Europe.
    1376 John Wycliffe is critical of the contemporary church and can find no basis for the pope’s authority.
    1380 Wycliffe translates the Bible.

    Since 2019 – 643 = 1376, I am going with Wycliffe’s criticism of Papal authority as the trigger for the stars to begin to go out.

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