Is Betelgeuse preparing for EXPLODE? New analysis shows the supergiant star is dimming and has entered the helium combustion phase – the first phase of going into a supernova – but none of us will be alive to see it
- Betelgeuse is a star in the constellation of Orion that is dimming
- A new study finds that it goes through the early core helium combustion phase
- This is when helium merges with carbon and eventually leads to an exploding star
- Experts involved in the study say Betelgeuse will explode in 100,000 years
Scientists have been focusing their eyes on the star Betelgeuse since last year, after reports showed that the red supergiant was dimming – but a new study shows it has more than 100,000 years until the event.
An international team of scientists suggests that the star is in the early nuclear phase of helium combustion, when a star burns helium to carbon, which is one of the last steps for supernova.
Researchers involved in the analysis also found that smaller variations in brightness of Betelgeuse are driven by stellar pulsations, and that the star’s location is closer to Earth than previously thought.
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An international team of scientists suggests the star is in the early nuclear phase of helium combustion, when a star burns helium to carbon, which is one of the last steps for supernova
The team is led by Dr. Meridith Joyce of the Australian National University (ANU), who used evolutionary, hydrodynamic and seismic models to analyze Betelgeuse’s brightness variation.
This allowed researchers to discover that the star was currently burning helium in its core.
This happens when a star’s core reaches about 100 million degrees, causing three helium cores to collide and fuse to form a carbon core.
The team is led by Dr. Meridith Joyce of the Australian National University (ANU), who used evolutionary, hydrodynamic and seismic models to analyze Betelgeuse’s brightness variation.
Sometime after this event, the core collapses, creating an explosion that results in nebula – regions of dust and gas in interstellar space.
Because of this in-depth investigation, the team also found that stellar pulsations, driven by the so-called kappa mechanism, cause the star to become brighter or less bright with two periods of 185 (+/- 13.5) days and about 400 days.
But the big drop in brightness in early 2020 is unprecedented and is probably due to a cloud of dust in front of Betelgeuse, as shown in the image.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope found that the dimming was likely due to a traumatic eruption that ejected hot material into space – covering Earth’s view of Betelgeuse.
Data had shown that a cloud of dust formed when the super-hot plasma was ejected from the star, which cooled and formed a cloud of dust that blocked light from the surface of Betelgeuse.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope found that the 2020 eclipse was likely due to a traumatic eruption that ejected hot material into space – covering Earth’s view of Betelgeuse
The size of Betelgeuse has been a mystery to the scientific community, but the latest study found it has 750 times the sun.
With this information, researchers were also able to determine that the star is only 530 light years from Earth, instead of 700 light years as previously believed.
Their results imply that Betelgeuse is not about to explode at all and that it is too far from Earth for the final explosion to have a significant impact here, even though it is still a very big deal when a supernova goes off.