Is the star Betelgeuse about to EXPLODE?

Welcome to our new post! In this article, I will present some interesting facts about the star Betelgeuse. Could this star be about to explode? Get ready to learn amazing things about this splendid star and surprise your friends with these interesting facts.

What is Betelgeuse?

Also known as Alpha Orionis, it is a flaming supergiant star. It is one of the largest and brightest stars that has been found. The brightness of this star is 7,500 to 14,000 times greater than that of our Sun. Why does it have such a large range? Because its brightness varies, sometimes it appears more intense and sometimes not.

Its color is between orange and red. At this stage, the star is normally at the end of its life. Stars expand into space over their life cycle. Although Betelgeuse is larger than our Sun, it is not older, being only 10 million years old. To give you an idea, the Sun is 500 times older than Betelgeuse and is approximately 5 billion years old. Betelgeuse is 700 times larger than the Sun.

An interesting fact is that Betelgeuse is so much larger than the Sun that if we replaced the Sun with this star, Betelgeuse would extend beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

And now you might be wondering: if stars expand over the years, how is it possible that Betelgeuse is younger and in a more advanced stage of its life cycle than the Sun? Betelgeuse is a massive star and due to its composition, it will burn out faster than our Sun, hence it has a shorter life expectancy. Betelgeuse is 15 times more massive than the Sun.

This star is 700 light-years away. Although it is larger and more massive than our Sun, did you know that the surface of Betelgeuse is cooler than that of the Sun? The Sun has a temperature of approximately 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while Betelgeuse has a temperature of 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Betelgeuse has attracted the attention of scientists due to its size and relative proximity to Earth, which makes it easier to study. In fact, references to this star were found in Egyptian and Greek civilizations. The Egyptians included it in the constellation Osiris, while the Greeks described it in the constellation Orion.

An interesting fact is that in Greek accounts, Betelgeuse was referred to with the word "hypókirrhos," which means a range of color from yellow to red, indicating that the star was at a younger point in its life cycle.

The Australian aborigines also observed the existence of pulsating stars in the sky.

Among regular stars, Betelgeuse is classified as semi-regular, meaning it has periodic and also irregular changes. It usually has two cycles: one of 400 days and another of 5 years.

But in 2019, an event broke its usual behavior during these cycles. Instead of showing a pulsating variation, it started to gradually dim. A curiosity is that the star dimmed its brightness by 60% over the following months. This episode of gradual dimming of a star is called the Great Dimming.

This event sparked the curiosity of scientists because if Betelgeuse were in a pre-supernova phase, reaching the supernova stage would be the closest supernova explosion observed from our planet.

Contrary to the speculation at the time, Betelgeuse returned to its usual brightness. After analyzing some images taken by Hubble, they observed that Betelgeuse had actually ejected a gigantic part of its surface into space. The materials from this ejection formed a dust cloud that blocked the light emitted by the star, hence its brightness was not visible.

This event of surface material ejection is common in stars. The Sun also undergoes several coronal mass ejection events. The peculiarity of the material ejection event of Betelgeuse is that the star expelled 400 billion times more mass than usual.

Scientists estimate that Betelgeuse still has more than 100,000 years before it explodes in a supernova. Then, depending on the amount of remaining mass after the explosion, the star will become either a neutron star or a black hole.

📚 Data source:

https://science.nasa.gov/universe/what-is-betelgeuse-inside-the-strange-volatile-star/

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-sees-red-supergiant-star-betelgeuse-slowly-recovering-after-blowing-its-top/

Hamacher, Duane. Observations of red-giant variable stars by Aboriginal Australians. The Australian Journal Of Anthropology. 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/taja.12257

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-finds-that-betelgeuses-mysterious-dimming-is-due-to-a-traumatic-outburst/