Is Betelgeuse, one of the sky’s brightest stars, on the brink of a supernova?
One of the sky’s brightest lights is losing its shine.
Since the start of December, the star Betelgeuse — the gleaming right shoulder of the constellation Orion — has been rapidly growing dim. Just 650 light-years from Earth, it’s usually the ninth most luminous star in the sky. Right now, it wouldn’t even break the top 20.
Betelgeuse is a “variable” star, known for wild fluctuations in its brightness, but scientists have never recorded it changing quite so fast. Such strange behavior from a beloved star has them wondering: Is this a sign that Betelgeuse is about to explode?
Astronomers know that day is bound to come. Betelgeuse is at least 15 times more massive than the sun and wide enough that, if we moved it to our solar system, it would extend past the orbit of Jupiter. “Supergiants” like this tend to live fast and die young, and Betelgeuse’s red color indicates that it has already moved to one of the last stages of a star’s life: fusing helium atoms into ever-heavier elements, which it occasionally spews into space. The carbon in your cells and the oxygen in your lungs was made this way, borne across the universe on the sighs of a dying sun.
Eventually, all the material in the core will become iron — an element too heavy for further fusion. The star will succumb to the intense inward crush of its own gravity. Betelgeuse will go supernova.
“But I’m not holding my breath for it,” said Miguel Montargès, an astrophysicist at Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.