Villanova University astronomers Edward Guinan and Richard Wasatonic were the first to report the recent darkening of Betelgeuse. In their new post to The Astronomer's Telegram, they share their current observations with the astronomical community.
According to their report, the star's brightness continues to decrease and has broken all records in 180 years of astronomical observations:
Based on the results of measurements of the luminosity of the star on January 18, astronomers talk about a decrease in the temperature of the stellar envelope and suggest an increase in its radius by ~ 9%. Astronomy does not know such rates of growth of the diameter of stars (9% in three months), therefore everything suggests that Betelgeuse goes supernova.
Nevertheless, The Astronomer's Telegram is a great official journal, where people cannot write in plain text what they think, so astronomers urge colleagues to keep a close eye on the star and try to offer their explanations for the results of their measurements.
So far, colleagues have not offered anything clever. Furthermore.
Dr. Stella Kafka, one of the enlightened astrophysicists, writes that she watched fashion magazines for three days or was busy with urgent matters in the kitchen, so she did not watch Betelgeuse. But, as she looked at the astronomical instruments, she was horrified:
Promotional video:
The editors of willgaterastrophotography.com did not look at fashion magazines, they were busy with business, so with a combination of real-time images of Betelgeuse, they got the following image:
This is what happens to the star between January 4 and January 18. As you can see, the luminosity drops very quickly. That is, the star continues to expand at a high speed, the surface temperature drops and it seems that it is extinguishing. But this is not for long, since the decay will be followed by an explosion of unprecedented force.
And the UNSEEN is not a metaphor at all. It's just that people have never seen a supernova explosion at a distance of 700 light years, and no one knows what will happen to them after that.
We, of course, do not think that Betelgeuse will become a source of heat so strong that everyone on Earth will glaze. However, in addition to light, there will be gravitational and other waves (they are already coming), which will cause a surge of unprecedented seismic / volcanic activity. And then it will be in Herculaneum. That is glass.
In addition, when another Sun appears in the sky, it can bake someone's head, after which he will press the “red button”. And where the warheads fall, there will also be glass. Moreover, there will be quite a lot of glasses - as if a glass container factory has blown up.
But there is also good news in this - the archaeologists of the future will then make wonderful church stained-glass windows out of us all, and we will follow the development of events right from the altars.