Scientists do not know if the star Betelgeuse, which has recently recorded a record drop in brightness, will explode in the near future, but if this happens, the explosion will be known a week before the currently observed large neutrino emission event.
This was told by astrophysicist, researcher at the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikolai Samus and astronomer, senior researcher at the State Astronomical Institute. Sternberg Vladimir Surdin, speaking at the presentation at the Moscow Planetarium of the book by American astrophysicist Neil Degrass Tyson "In the Service of War".
Betelgeuse is a star in the constellation Orion. It is a red giant, whose luminosity is 80-105 thousand times higher than that of the Sun. It is one of the largest stars known to astronomers. If placed instead of the sun, the edge of the star would reach the orbit of Mars or Jupiter. Moreover, the mass of Betelgeuse is 17 times that of the sun. Recently, the star has experienced record drops in brightness. The distance to it, according to various estimates, is approximately 613 to 880 light years.
“I am the editor of the variable star catalog. Betelgeuse is a famous variable star. And she says that the registered magnitude is at a minimum of +1.3. She broke this record abruptly. She went down to 1.6-1.7. The star fell very deep, fell slowly, and now it is coming out of it, coming out very confidently. Now she played 1.2 back. The light curve is very convincing. But whether this unprecedented minimum of Betelgeuse will be associated with any explosive activity, no one knows, no one will tell you, neither I nor Wikipedia,”Samus said.
In turn, Surdin said that in the event of an explosion, the star will send, including towards the Earth, a large number of various particles and rays. “It will be safe here on the surface of the Earth, but quite dangerous for satellites and astronauts,” he said.
A week before the explosion, scientists will already know about it, as the star will eject a large number of neutrinos. They will be detected by neutrino detectors in the USA and Japan. “They will just go off scale,” Surdin said.