Could Betelgeuse Go Boom? 383
An anonymous reader writes "The answer is No. In space, nobody can hear you scream. However, it might go supernova in the near future, if it hasn't already. I wanna see that, even if it would permanently disfigure Orion. Ka freaking bam!"
Nova Post! (Score:4, Funny)
Boom!
Re:Nova Post! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Nova Post! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Is that the sound it makes when a Hrung collapses?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Turns out it was Mostly Harmless.
Re:Nova Post! (Score:4, Informative)
But it would also destroy Zaphod's home (Betelgeuse V). Now, Zaphod's just this guy, you know, but he's still the public President of the Galaxy, man!
I guess we can just not panic and relax in the fact that, where the Guide is inaccurate, it is at least definitively inaccurate, and in cases of major discrepancy it is always reality that has it wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously - If it goes supernova we should be a bit worried because it's close enough to drown us with radiation.
If that happens all our petty bickering on this planet will seem insignificant.
Of course - it's not certain that the radiation will be strong enough to kill off all life, but things will probably change a lot.
Re:Nova Post! (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
because the first we'd know about it would be the gamma burst
No, no, no, the first way to tell if a star has already gone supernova is by the change in graviton waves.
Just need to finish figuring out how to detect those... maybe if we supply more power to the lateral sensor array...
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Actually, thinking about this rationally, I'm sure the Jedi could detect it ahead of time as planets in it's wake are destroyed.
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Yes it was. [nobelprize.org]
From the linked page:
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that light from the core takes a lot more time to reach the surface than from the surface to the earth has a completely different reason.
In fact, neutrinos aren't massless which means they are slower than light. The only reason the neutrinos arrived first is because of the way supernovas work. The neutrinos get emitted as soon as the core collapses but the first visible light only appears as soon as the shockwave from the collapse gets to the surface.
Disclaimer: I'm not yet an astrophysicist, but I
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Also it would take 520 years to get here anyway...
The thing about distances measured in lightunits, causality propagates at that same speed. So if we see it happening now, for us, causally (not casually) speaking, it is happening now.
It's just futile for us to try to do anything to stop it, because it is impossible for our reaction to have an effect on it for another 520 years (like sending a radio signal saying, "Frood, it appears that your star's just exploded! Are you all right?").
when it will happen (Score:5, Funny)
It's probably gonna blow the next time Lydia yells Betelgeuse 3 times.
Probable cause? (Score:5, Funny)
Global warming.
Wow, Great Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it THAT slow of a news day, or could no one else possibly outdo this clown of a submitter?
You must be ... (Score:3, Informative)
... new here. ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia, a beowulf cluster of sharks with frikken lasor beams on their heads scientology's Roland!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the editors or owners of Slashdot are either 1) Trying to increase viewership by appealing to a lowest denominator (Star go boom! Big word scary! Chemicals are mean! Vroom vroom car!) or 2) Trying to deliberately weaken the readership for purposes I can only speculate that. That second theory is bolstered by the clumsy rolling out of 'features' during the past few weeks - breaking things that once worked, adding new features that don't, and in general doing their best to make the site almost more tr
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no inside information, but it's apparent to me that Slsahdot is trying to be the new 'Facebook' or 'MySpace' for geeks. Or something. I'm expecting any day now the ability to add tacky photos, weird fonts and poor layouts to your journal pages.
Furthermore, I think that much of the original geek crowd is gone or mostly in lurk mode. So they are doing their best to attract a younger audience.
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:4, Interesting)
How true. Not that it was ever Shangri-La, but Slashdot did once have some interesting and informative discussions on, you know, technical matters.
And making it another pile of useless shit like Digg or Reddit is precisely the wrong way to do that. A younger audience can be intelligent too, dontchaknow. Competing for the large but well-served market (if you can call it that) of the sort of drooling morons who argue in YouTube comments is ultimately futile.
Shorter: we can has good geek site again?
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think they're gone, and lurk mode depends on your definition of it. If I'm sitting around with a bunch of geeks talking about non-technical stuff, I don't think that makes it lurk mode so much as everyday conversation. When we have technical discussions on here, the level of discussion isn't the same as a professional journal but it's very impressive for a public forum filled with a diverse technical audience. It's still a common occurrence where I see posts on here that give me insight on an issue that I may never have otherwise come across; there are even fairly profound anecdotes.
I also tend to guess that people remember the olden days as being better than they were. I think the signal to noise in replies has gone up, but moderation takes care of that. The stories, well, frankly I've been here ten years now and I don't remember a time where people weren't groaning at a lot of the stories. I wasn't as regular of a reader back then, but I certainly remember vitriolic replies to every Katz story I saw.
A lot of times I see people whine about stories on here, it's seems to be myopic assholes who expect slashdot to cater to exactly their tastes to the detriment of everyone else -- and expect top shelf journalism despite it being free and them making little to no contribution of any type at all. I've seen complaints about technical stories, hard science stories, what I would call soft science interest stories, stories about new products, lots of the stories about nerd or geek culture. There's really very few types of stories that seem to be without complaint; if slashdot went the blameless route, it might have three stories a week and it'd miss a shitload of stuff that's quite interesting if you're a person who's actually curious about the world. If you want to complain about the quality of the actual writing, then I suggest you submit more stories with high quality writing -- this is a user-driven site after all.
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:4)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You must be new here... ;)
Re:We should get rid of the AC -1 modifier (Score:5, Insightful)
If you get rid of AC you'll get rid of lots of noise, true.
you'll also get rid of people who post inside info...
-nB
Re: (Score:2)
Having "journal pages" was bad enough.
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:5, Funny)
Journal pages, friends/foes + geeks =
OMG! Slashdot is the first antisocial networking site.
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:5, Informative)
tacky photos, weird fonts and poor layouts
Don't worry, they're currently hard at work on it.
http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~jlg95/stuff/shittycode.png [drexel.edu]
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:4, Funny)
The new Slashdot. News for nerds with girlfriends.
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
"Show us your Warcraft main".
Your case is proven.
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:4, Funny)
"Show us your Warcraft main".
Your case is proven.
Your point being?
- Nefarious Wheel, 40 years an IT geek, also PVP Geared 80 Mage, 80 Hunter
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:4, Interesting)
1.Lay down on the floor and throw a tantrum.
2.Start your own SlashNot site.
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Continuing to be OT, why did the scrolling through comments become so horribly slow?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Star go boom! Big word scary! Chemicals are mean! Vroom vroom car!
Yes? Yes? Go on.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
That is one heck of a summary. I really like how a line and a half of text is qualifying as a story these days. Is it THAT slow of a news day, or could no one else possibly outdo this clown of a submitter?
or you could just lighten up.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
In 800 pixels wide it's 7 lines of text.
Not that it makes it any longer. And on a 30" it must be like half a line. Just saying...
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:5, Funny)
That is one heck of a summary. I really like how a line and a half of text is qualifying as a story these days.
That's what you call your executive summary.
Betelgeuse Betelgeuse Betelgeuse (Score:4, Funny)
Yes (Score:5, Informative)
The anonymous reader is wrong. A supernova would be accompanied by a large amount of shockwaves through the star, and a large amount of pressure waves. There would be no sound, in the sense that there would be no neurological interpretations of these phenomena, but they would still happen.
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
As compared to, it would be called noise if it created a meme.
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Re:Yes (Score:5, Informative)
Won't matter much.
First up, let me preface this by saying a supernova happening at six hundred light years is probably no big deal. Probably. However, there is some evidence that gamma ray bursts might be the product of a sufficiently massive star dying and producing a black hole, in which case we could be in trouble if we were struck be such an event at close range.
But having the bulk of the earth between yourself and such an event would not save you. Remember that we're talking about enough energy here to be detected over intergalactic distances using fairly rudimentary instruments. That much ionizing radiation will cause sufficient damage to the world's surface on the facing side to ensure the deaths of everyone globally.
However, this presumes that A) GRBs are in fact supernovae emanations, B) Betelgeuse will produce such an event if (when) it dies and C) the energy will be directed at us. There is some support for the idea that long GRBs occur as "jet" effects in two polar opposite directions, which would explain why we don't see them every time a star goes kaput. We need to be in the line of sight. If this were a common occurrence for the earth, it is very likely we would not be here at all.
Re: (Score:2)
That and the ionizing radiation would destroy the ozone layer for a time. I have heard estimates that it would take a decade to 1000 years to fully regenerate. In that time, the sun would really harm life on earth. (How much harm depends on who you ask.)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Anybody remember seeing this or am I in the early stages of Alzheimer [?]
If you are, it must be a unique case where the memory is not lost but gained :-)
Inventing memories (confabulation) is a fairly common symptom of Alzheimer's disease.
ANTHROPIC principle (Score:4, Informative)
It's called the antrhopic principle [wikipedia.org].
The anthropomorphic [google.com] principle would be that the stars are smiling on us...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's called the antrhopic principle [wikipedia.org].
At least you got it right in the link and subject. That's what really matters.
The mistakes we most regret are the ones we make while correcting others. I know; I've done it too.
quivering ejecta (Score:2)
It's likely that sound can be detected in space with the use of laser microphones. The sound won't be conducted through space, but that doesn't mean the ejecta isn't quivering, or that the quivering can't be neurologically assimilated.
Nebulous (Score:4, Funny)
New doomsday scenario? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:New doomsday scenario? (Score:5, Informative)
Would the neutrinos affect us at all? Is this another doomsday scenario?
Please, please tell me this was a joke. Please tell me you actually understood what a neutrino is, and were intentionally posting something absurd.
In the off-chance you were serious, a neutrino doesn't interact with matter enough to do any damage. This is not a matter of any uncertainty. A single neutrino would have a chance of passing through several light years of solid lead without interacting with a single atom. Neutrinos are sleeting through your body right now from the centre of the sun; they pass through the suns outer layers unimpeded, and if the sun isn't overhead wherever you are right now, then they've also passed through the innards of the earth.
Neutrinos can't affect us. Or the earth, or much of anything, really.
Re:New doomsday scenario? (Score:5, Informative)
The neutrinos from a core collapse supernova would be lethal to humans at the distance of Jupiter. Any given neutrino has very little chance of hitting interacting with normal density matter it passes through, but there are a LOT of neutrinos: about 0.05 solar masses of them.
Furthermore, they are the first things that escape from the core (apart from gravitational waves) since they move at near-lightspeed and have very little chance of interacting with the envelope of the star. The big flashy special effects are driven by the shockwave from the core reaching the surface, and that takes hours. So if you were at the distance of Jupiter, you would have time to die from neutrino effects before the blast hit you.
Admittedly, Betelgeuse is somewhat further away than Jupiter, and the only neutrino effects are likely to be a lot of very excited astrophysicists. But both Jupiter and Betelgeuse are much closer than 99.9999999999999999999% of the Universe, and much further away than everyone you've ever met, so the distance scales aren't that different.
Re: (Score:2)
The neutrinos from a core collapse supernova would be lethal to humans at the distance of Jupiter
I'm not going to put an obnoxious citation needed tag here, but damned if I wasn't tempted. That's the first I've ever heard of neutrinos being deadly to anything at all. I'm understandably sceptical.
I don't suppose you remember the source for that? I'd be curious to see the details.
That being said, the distance between the sun and Jupiter is on the order of tens of light minutes, whereas here to Betelgeuse is hundreds of light years. They may both be, as you say, close to us in astronomical terms, but
Re:New doomsday scenario? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the first I've ever heard of neutrinos being deadly to anything at all. I'm understandably sceptical.
The neutrino emissions from a supernova would be lethal to humans out to a light year or so. Really. Cross-section is ~10e-40 cm^2, average energy is 1 MeV-ish. You work it out.
Re:New doomsday scenario? (Score:5, Informative)
And how these neutrinos are supposed have an ionizing effect, exactly?
Charged current interaction, which is one aspect of the weak nuclear force. If you think about it, electrons must feel the week force, otherwise beta decay wouldn't happen.
Most neutrino detectors use see solar neutrinos this way: Cherenkov light from electrons kicked out by the charged current interaction. (The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, in contrast, was also sensitive to the neutral current interaction, which is what made it possible to determine that neutrinos have mass.)
Re: (Score:2)
I was going to reply with "work it out", but I see someone beat me to it. He even provided the necessary numbers, available on wikipedia.
Of course, if you're far enough away to survive all the other particles, the neutrinos aren't going to bother you, but you're right, it's interesting to know that neutrinos could kill you. It gives you something of sense of the scale of a supernova. It's even more satisfying to be able to work it out.
Re:New doomsday scenario? (Score:4, Insightful)
The neutrinos from a core collapse supernova would be lethal to humans at the distance of Jupiter.
I think if you're that close to a supernova, you've got much, much bigger problems than neutrinos.
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Ah, ok.
A supergiant going nova that close could be bad. Neutrinos wouldn't be the problem however - more likely it would be x-rays or gamma rays that would do Bad Things(TM) to the planet.
As mentioned elsewhere, there is some question as to whether observed long duration gamma ray bursts are the product of dying stars collapsing into a black hole. If that theory is correct, the final moments of a supergiant's demise produce two "jets" of gamma rays going in polar opposite directs - the "burst" is actually
Re:New doomsday scenario? (Score:5, Funny)
More of note.
If it's 640 light years away, then it probably went boom 640 years ago.
Which only makes sense, since after all, 640 years should be enough for anyone.
GrpA
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
640 light years should be enough for anyone
640 lightyears away you say? (Score:2, Redundant)
640 light years? That ought to be enough for anybody.
Re:New doomsday scenario? (Score:4, Informative)
The neutrinos [wikipedia.org] will do no such thing.
Re: (Score:2)
The neutrinos [wikipedia.org] will do no such thing.
Lets be thankful that the ozone layer would get a well needed boost, considering what we have done to it. And the auroras would be fantastic, once particles start to arrive.
wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Betelgeuse is a very young star. It's only a handful of millions of years old. It is extremely unlikely for there to be any simple life around it, and no chance of any civilizations that didn't have the ability to travel interstellar distances on their own - as if they are there, they had to come from somewhere else.
Where's the kaboom? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh noes! (Score:2)
Not big enough and close enough to be a hazard to us?
Re: (Score:2)
TFA states that theory predicts that it may be potato shaped. I don't think its actual shape is known.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Potatoes come in many different shapes.
Obligitory Hitchhiker's reference (Score:2)
Re:Obligitory Hitchhiker's reference (Score:4, Funny)
That's not a supernova, you see, Betlegeuse was just in the way of an interstellar expressway.
What a show if it does... (Score:5, Interesting)
...rippling bands across the ground from atmospheric turbulence, razor-sharp shadows everywhere, with prominent diffraction rings around the ones from faraway objects. And a flaming rainbow streak, blue at the top, shading down through green to red, as it rises or sets in a clear sky.
If my calculations are right, it won't burn your eyes; it would be roughly equivalent to looking into a 4-microwatt laser, not nearly strong enough to be dangerous. A 10-inch telescope could collimate it into a 5-mW beam, bright enough to see passing through the air, if only it were dark outside. The Palomar reflector would collect closer to 2 watts, enough to start fires and such.
If it happened this month, most everybody north of the Antarctic Circle would be cruelly cheated. Any time from August through April, though, it should be visible in the night sky from just about anywhere but that same Antarctic. And yes, I'd be willing to drag myself out of bed pre-dawn for this.
Wait a sec (Score:3, Interesting)
In your calculations you forgot the small factoid that it may be another thousand years before it goes supernova. It has brightened considerably in the past only to dim back down. It was Fox news (fair and balanced) that mentions it going supernova, not the paper presented at the meeting that merely states a 15% shrinkage and nothing else.
So,you might would have to drag/dig yourself out of the ground to see the Betelgeuse supernova. And most zombies I know about are more interested in brains than astronomy.
Heart of Gold (Score:4, Funny)
Let's hope Zaphod or Ford weren't visiting relatives at the time.
Correction - not a supernova (Score:2)
Astronomer's have confirmed it wasn't actually a supernova it was just Disaster Area tuning up for their gig tonight 600 years ago.
Re:Correction - not a supernova (Score:5, Funny)
it was just Disaster Area tuning up for their gig tonight 600 years ago
Please consult Dr. Streetmentioner's reference for the proper use of the Relativistic Simul-Past-Present tense.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So is that "Disaster Area wioll onhaven be tuning up" or "Disaster Area weres beening tuning up"?
Join the fight against time-machines. Crush the time-traveling grammar nazis.
Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
I hope this doesn't interfere with the Green Orion Women Slave Trade from Star Trek...
Nearby Supergiant stars (Score:5, Informative)
...are candidates
You get a lot of talk about how spectacular Eta Carinae would be if it went up. There's already been a Supernova "imposter" event... ..and here's some analysis of whether it's a danger. ...or has done so already
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae [wikipedia.org]
http://stupendous.rit.edu/richmond/answers/snrisks.txt [rit.edu]
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/246576/files/th-6805-93.ps.gz [cdsweb.cern.ch]
Finally! (Score:2)
There are some jokes in the Hitchhiker's trilogy that are hard to get, but this one from the Restaurant took me the longest:
"Did you know," interrupting the ghostly figure, fixing Zaphod with a stern look, "that Betelgeuse Five has developed a very slight eccentricy in its orbit?"
So DNA was just joking about the impeding nova, giving a clue in the disturbances it would cause in its planets' orbits.
Shit, I feel dumb.
New Sensationalist (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't exactly news. (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Betelgeuse is awesome and very, very pretty - I'd hate for it to turn into another colour or vanish altogether. Isn't there someone we could petition to stop this?
No Boom Today, Boom Tomorrow (Score:5, Interesting)
Are we really sure we're far enough away to be safe? I've heard before that a supernova even dozens of lightyears away would be a very bad thing for Earth.
Re: (Score:2)
The ancient Egyptians revered Sirius much more than Betelgeuse.
I can't wait (Score:2)
Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster (Score:2)
Douglas Adams recorded a brief history of this catastrophe... It is only now in the near future that the light will reach Earth and that we may observe with our antiquated electromagnetic telescopes.
Relitivity (Score:4, Insightful)
However, it might go supernova in the near future, if it hasn't already
It hasn't already, because we haven't seen it go boom yet. Even if it is half a millennium away in terms of light travel time, from our frame of reference it will only go boom when we observe it to.
I don't think the submitter read TFA (Score:5, Informative)
OK, I read the article. It says that the star has been shrinking and mentions a few hypothesis.
None of them say anything about nova - super or otherwise.
Some of the comments on the article do.
Could we fire the editor? Please?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I just read a story today about a lady who missed the Air France flight that killed everyone on board and then today died in a car wreck.
I'm not ruling anything out anymore.
Re:Aliens better shield us with something.. (Score:5, Funny)
I just read a story today about a lady who missed the Air France flight that killed everyone on board and then today died in a car wreck.
Yeah I think Alanis Morissette is working on the song as we speak.
Re:Aliens better shield us with something.. (Score:5, Funny)
The yield of such a gamma ray blast might x-ray and bake us pretty nicely, but it might be distant enough, hopefully.
But there aren't any aliens around. I wonder if they know something we don't? What we need is a ringworld with the rotation axis at 90 degrees to the direction of Betelgeuse.
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Re:Aliens better shield us with something.. (Score:5, Funny)
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My understanding is that the axis on which it spins would not force any gamma rays towards Earth's direction
That assumption relies on a lot of theory. One things for sure, if that star goes bang our theories will improve at a rapid rate.
Re:Poof (Score:4, Informative)
That assumption relies on a lot of theory. One things for sure, if that star goes bang our theories will improve at a rapid rate.
Well, put another way, the theories have to be wrong in exactly the right way for the results to be hazardous. If they're wrong in some other fashion (such as our misjudging what exactly causes a GRB), then hey, no problem. If the theories surrounding gamma ray bursts and supernovae are right, we're probably safe. They have to be mostly right, but get the directionality of the burst wrong, before we're in trouble. Or the star would have to shift on its axis and point precisely where we don't want it.
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Re:Insensitive Clod (Score:5, Funny)
Oh noes, a lethal grammar ray burst!