Episode 606: Betelgeuse Is Dimmer Than We've Ever Seen It

Over the last weekend, astronomy Twitter started noting that the red giant Betelgeuse, the prominent shoulder of Orion was looking visibly dimmer in the sky, and I had a few people reach out to me and ask me if it was really happening and if I knew what was going on. This is exciting, of course, because Betelgeuse is living on borrowed time, and it could explode as a supernova any day now. Or, it might not detonate for another 100,000 years. We just don’t know. What’s Betelgeuse up to? Is this a sign that it’s about to explode? And what would it mean if it did? Our Book is out! https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Today-Ultimate-Viewing-Cosmos/dp/1624145442/ Audio Podcast version: ITunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/universe-today-guide-to-space-audio/id794058155?mt=2 RSS: https://www.universetoday.com/audio Weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Weekly Space Hangout: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/ Astronomy Cast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUHI67dh9jEO2rvK--MdCSg Support us at https://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at https://www.universetoday.com/ Twitch: https://twitch.tv/fcain Twitter: @universetoday Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Instagram - https://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com References: https://twitter.com/starstrickenSF/status/1209207523179237376 https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/what-will-happen-when-betelgeuse-explodes-df5b04164b2 https://www.eso.org/public/usa/images/potw1726b/ https://hubblesite.org/image/4027/gallery https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0708a/ http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=13341 https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/feature1.shtml https://twitter.com/starstrickenSF/status/1209242710281986048 https://www.astro.princeton.edu/~gk/A403/pulse.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01852.pdf https://aasnova.org/2018/01/03/astrophysics-of-red-supergiants/ https://neutrinos.fnal.gov/sources/supernova-neutrinos/ https://snews.bnl.gov/ https://researchblog.duke.edu/2014/01/22/supernova-explosion-in-m82-exciting-but-no-neutrinos/ https://aasnova.org/2018/04/20/capturing-neutrinos-from-a-stars-final-hours/ https://www.phys.hawaii.edu/~jgl/nuastron.html