a star beyond

[novapsyche]

Betelgeuse: The incredible shrinking star?

I was first alerted to this by dionysus1999. I really don't want this to be true; Orion is prominent in my personal cosmology and it would sadden me to see the constellation altered.

Comments

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I really really hope it's not gearing up to collapse and go gamma-ray burst on us. It's close enough that this could damage the ecosystem.

[pgdudda.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, it's pointing the wrong way for the supernova to zap us with a gamma-ray burst. It'll be interesting to have a few generations of humans grow up with two "suns" in their sky...

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i looked at the source for that claim in the article, and it doesn't say anything about what would happen if Betelgeuse goes GRB. They estimate that 100 light years away is enough to avoid trouble, but these events fill whole galaxies with light and can be seen billions of light years away. I do think honestly there is a lot of danger if it were to happen, but it's nothing worth losing sleep over.