Episode Details

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?

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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