Betelgeuse Breathing

szyzyg writes "For the fisrt time ever astronomers have been able to observe waves and flows on the surface of a star other than the sun. Alex Lobel and Andrea Dupree managed to detect these flows on the surface of the supergiant Betelgeuse - the bright red star in the constellation of Orion. This star is so large that its radius is about the same as the distance at which the earth orbits.... i.e. about 150 million km. It's almost at the upper limit for stellar sizes predicted by Eddington "

Betelgeuse

[SiliconJesus]

Correct me if I'm wrong on this one, but isn't Betelgeuse the brightest star in Orion? I couldn't remember the exact distance but I kinda remember reading about it when I was still into Astronomy that it is one of the few stars that we actually would have a chance of discovering life on with SETI type projects due to the relatively small distance (0 - 25 Light Years). Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Betelgeuse

[JetJaguar]

Yes, Betelgeuse is the brightest star in Orion, but it's a lot further away, about 520 light-years. It's also a rather unstable star, so I wouldn't expect it to be a very good candidate for SETI to watch.

A little clarification

[Elyas]

According to the article, Betelgeuse's radius is actually closer to the distance from the sun to Jupiter, and it is the second brightest, not the brightest, star in that system. The usefulness is that the information will help people understand the assymetrical nature of the pulsing of super giants, which I suppose could have implications for other areas, what I don't really know

Re:Unstable == Bad to watch?

[JetJaguar]

Well, that's an interesting idea. But think about it for a second. Yeah, the ET's might send a probe or even go there themselves (assuming it's possible to do that in a reasonable amount of time), but they're not going to pack up their entire civilization. The chances of picking up a stray signal from somebody's "home-world" is much more likely than picking up the signal from some probe with barely enough power send a signal back home, much less make it anywhere else.

You want to look at the population centers where there will be lots more activity. I don't think you're going to find aliens flocking to live near a pulsating red giant star. You never know when the star might just decide to expand out and engulf your nice little planet or spaceship, or, in the case of Betelgeuse, go supernova.