as the second brightest star in the constellation Orion and making the hunter's right shoulder
Betelgeuse has been an object of fascination ever since its discovery
the red supergiant star is destined to go supernova but as of late has been
displaying some rather odd behavior that has scientists and astronomers buzzing
they have now predicted that betelgeuse is headed for a massive explosion in 2022
the likes of which have never been seen before and what's even better is that we might just
get to see it right here from planet earth welcome the Facnomenal and today we will be talking about
the most exciting space event of our time the colossal explosion of the giant star betelgeuse
the big red giant if you look up into the night sky you might be able to spot three stars that
make up Orion's belt the famous star pattern is extremely easy to identify and if you look
slightly towards the left of the belt you will be sure to find a bright reddish colored star
if you did then congratulations you just spotted betelgeuse remember Tim Burton's
wild supernatural comedy of the same name well back in the day many considered Betelgeuse the
star to be the doorway to infinite blackness of outer space just as Betelgeuse the character was
the doorman of the underworld and the movie name was a simple yet clever play on words
but when it comes to the red giant there is nothing simple about it at all it is oftentimes
referred to as Alpha Orionis and is one of the most magnificent celestial bodies in the universe
Betelgeuse shines in the sky with a somber red hue making it easily discernible to even the
casual observer you've probably even gazed upon the star before without even realizing what a
cosmic wonder you were staring at Betelgeuse sits approximately 724 light years away from the earth
when comparing the supergiant to our own star it is roughly 950 times as large as the sun
the star is surrounded by layers and layers of material that it's been shedding for all these
years to understand just how much mass it shed one of the largest shells of material around it
actually has a radius of nearly 7.5 light years not only is this star so bright and beautiful but
it seems to be working overtime too shedding all of that excess mass what's so interesting about
Betelgeuse is that it is an irregular variable star or a semi-regular variable star which
essentially means that it constantly fluctuates in brightness at times it is one of the brightest
objects in the night sky and sometimes it appears extremely faint yet still present the red color
of the star gives us the clue that it is an old supergiant with cooler and older stars giving
off that gloomy red hue a star of this size and being so advanced in age will ultimately die out
and it seemed like eventually the big bright star would soon be headed towards a similar fate
but recently when astronomers and researchers noticed that the great Betelgeuse was suddenly
appearing much dimmer in the night sky it began to raise many eyebrows and has since led many
to speculate that the giant star is on the verge of exploding or perhaps something more
the fate of our stars generally speaking all of the beautiful stars you see in the sky will
someday eventually die after all those years of burning up and shedding mass there really is
no other way around it but how the star will die actually heavily depends upon what kind of a star
it is if you consider stars similar to the sun for example the core of the star will eventually
run out of its hydrogen fuel and begin to contract due to gravity as this happens the core begins to
really heat up which further heats up the outer layers causing them to expand the radius of the
star increases massively and turns the star into a red giant after some time of being in the stage
the helium will fuse into carbon in the heated core when the helium fuel finally runs out the
core will now expand and cool while shedding upper layers and ejecting material around it
to form a planetary nebula finally the core cools and you are left with what is called a white dwarf
scientists believe this process can take billions of years but what about the stars that
are much larger than the sun say for example like Betelgeuse well these massive stars would also use
up their helium fuel and their mass is enough to fuse carbon into far heavier elements like oxygen
magnesium sulfur and iron until a point where the core turns to iron and can no longer burn
the star will then rapidly shed its outer layers and collapse as gravity wins out with the core
shrinking to a neutron core the core will heat up and finally explode into a supernova
the cataclysmic explosion releases huge amounts of energy and radiation known as gamma-ray bursts
the remnant of the core can either form a bright neutron star or it may turn into the
most mysterious object in space a black hole 2022 supernova being one of the most famous
stars in space does have its perks and that means astronomers and scientists give Betelgeuse all
the attention it rightfully deserves closely studying and observing the star at all times
a rather interesting observation was made about the star in late 2019 as usual Betelgeuse appeared
a little dimmer in the sky than normal which wasn't very alarming in itself except that
it suddenly abruptly darkened and no one knew why the giant star shifts brightness regularly
and its surface is like a mosaic of cells that swell and shrink almost like the whole thing is
pulsing but this time the star dimmed and never brightened up again as per its normal schedule
it just kept getting darker and darker and faded to nearly 40 percent of its usual glimmer
many immediately began speculating that the giant star might actually be ready to explode
the dramatic dip in the star's brightness was heavily pointing towards the fact that it's on its
very last stages of life and could be exploding soon and by soon we mean as soon as the year 2022
many began speculating that within a few years we could actually witness this explosion the likes
of which have never been seen before the last ever supernova observed in our galaxy was Keplar
Star way back in 1604 researchers and amateur astronomers were pointing every telescope they
could at the sim portion to figure out just what exactly was happening and if 2022 could really
be the year we witnessed a supernova explosion slowly but surely over the following few months
the star returned to its original brightness as further studies were conducted in thermal
infrared wavelengths the star didn't appear to be dramatically cooling as it should have if it
were headed towards an explosion this caused the divide within the scientific community over what
was really happening with the star some suggested that it was hiding behind a huge cloud of dust
causing it to appear dimmer than normal while others thought that its rapidly shedding layers
were obstructing our view of it which would mean an explosion would be imminent stellar spectacle
when a massive star like Betelgeuse eventually does explode it's bound to have some very large
scale effects explosions like this are rare and astronomers estimate that one occurs in our galaxy
just a few times every century and they don't happen anywhere close enough for us to observe
the colossal explosion will completely disintegrate the outer layers of the star's
matter and scatter everything into the darkness and beyond releasing extremely strong radiation
and heaps of energy as for planet earth luckily we are too far away for this explosion to cause
any kind of harm or danger to human life some astrophysicists have suggested that we would
have to be at least within 50 light years of a supernova to be feeling the full effects
well it looks like we dodged that one our planet's magnetic field would deflect any particles coming
our way and the distance is legs enough that high energy radiation reaching us would have zero to
little effect the night sky will be brighter than it ever was putting on the most spectacular
display it will become the brightest object in the sky even rivaling the moon as the brightest
in our sky but what would happen is that everyone on earth at the time would be treated to perhaps
the most spectacular and beautiful light show ever it would be like the first time you saw the Disney
light parade as a kid only much better until we developed an ultra powerful neutrino telescope or
some advanced technology we won't really be able to pinpoint when exactly it will go supernova
and more interestingly when studying stars we are technically looking into the past
and since the star is over a few hundred light years away it's kind of interesting to imagine
that it may have already gone supernova and we just don't know about it yet but there is
absolutely no doubt that when Betelgeuse goes supernova it will be a glorious sight to behold
so what do you think will betelgeuse turn into a neutron star or a black hole
tell us in the comments please like and share the video and don't forget
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