Is Betelgeuse About to go Supernovae?

[shpalman]

some gravitational waves which probably didn't happen which have nothing to do with Betelgeuse

[plodder]

don’t be so gloomy. here’s the content you need:

https://mobile.twitter.com/starstricken ... 3606515712

[cvb]

don’t be so gloomy. here’s the content you need:

https://mobile.twitter.com/starstricken ... 3606515712

That's cool. Thanks for the link.

[tenchboy]

don’t be so gloomy. here’s the content you need:

https://mobile.twitter.com/starstricken ... 3606515712

That's cool. Thanks for the link.

The one a few below 'of the moon making an appearance on our satelite images of the sun' reminds me of...
Spoiler:

Ade Edmondson

[AMS]

Dust, apparently, and originating from the star itself. (Someone tell Philip Pullman.)

https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... betelgeuse

Is it normal for star to kick out enough dust to hide it from view?

[Martin Y]

I didn't follow that twitter link till now and I wonder if I misconstrued its talking about convection cells and starspots: is it actually possible to resolve any features at all of an object (even Betelgeuse-sized) 200 parsecs away? That seems impossible but I do keep finding myself having to recalibrate my boundaries of the possible.

[JQH]

It seems it is possible.

[Gfamily]

I didn't follow that twitter link till now and I wonder if I misconstrued its talking about convection cells and starspots: is it actually possible to resolve any features at all of an object (even Betelgeuse-sized) 200 parsecs away? That seems impossible but I do keep finding myself having to recalibrate my boundaries of the possible.

Betelgeuse was resolved as a disc using optical interferometry as early as the 1930's I think.

ETA 1920 apparently

[Martin Y]

Thanks. <recalibrates>

[dyqik]

Dust, apparently, and originating from the star itself. (Someone tell Philip Pullman.)

https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... betelgeuse

Is it normal for star to kick out enough dust to hide it from view?

Whole galaxies do it sometimes.

[dyqik]

I didn't follow that twitter link till now and I wonder if I misconstrued its talking about convection cells and starspots: is it actually possible to resolve any features at all of an object (even Betelgeuse-sized) 200 parsecs away? That seems impossible but I do keep finding myself having to recalibrate my boundaries of the possible.

Betelgeuse was resolved as a disc using optical interferometry as early as the 1930's I think.

ETA 1920 apparently

Here's an image from December.

200214112231-betelgeuse-dec-2019-super-169.jpg (12.92 KiB) Viewed 4142 times

[dyqik]

Betelgeuse is 55 milli arcseconds in apparent diameter.

The EHT observations of M87 and SgrA* have an angular resolution of 25 micro arcseconds, so could theoretically put 2000 pixels across Betelgeuse.

Unfortunately stars are really boring to look at in the submm-wave continuum. We get far more information from spectral line observations that don't fully resolve the disk of the star.

[Martin Y]

Betelgeuse is 55 milli arcseconds in apparent diameter.

I caught myself thinking "I know it's enormously bigger than the sun but 55mas at 200 parsecs; that would make Betelgeuse several times bigger than the entire orbit of the earth and... Oh. Wait. It is." Got the nagging feeling this was all familiar when I was young and I've got stupid. Guess I just haven't thought about in ages.