Complex Numbers

Betelgeuse 2

The person (P.Z. Myers) who writes the blog I'm linking today is a scientist—but he's a biologist, not an astronomer. So his take on astronomy probably isn't any more reliable than mine. This doesn't stop either of us from writing about it.

    Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse  

I'm sharing this because 1) I would love to see a supernova before I kick it (though hopefully not one that's too close) and 2) I'll take any opportunity to call out misinformation.

Something funny is going on 650 light years away…or should I use the past tense? Something funny was going on 650 years ago.

Yes, we know light has a speed, and we don't have good grammatical tenses for it. The way I look at it is: what matters is when we see the event; the distance (or time) when it happened is immaterial.

The star Betelgeuse is/was acting up, dimming and then brightening (well, it’s always been flickering a bit, but this was a greater reduction in brightness than usual.)

This is cool by itself, because it contributes to astronomers' understanding of how stars work.

And now some people are saying it’s about to go supernova!

Well, it is. For cosmological definitions of "about to."

There is a real-time deathwatch on YouTube. “LIVE Betelgeuse Supernova Explosion Is Finally HAPPENING NOW!” it says.

And that's where the misinformation, or at least misunderstanding, comes in.

I'll let PZ explain there at the link, or at least quote actual star-gazer type scientists.

Awww, but it sounds like it will be spectacular when we do get the Giant Space Kablooiee, and not spectacularly dangerous, the best kind of spectacular there is.

The Giant Space Kablooiee is not to be confused with the Horrendous Space Kablooie,   which was, to the best of our knowledge, what kick-started this enormous thing we call the Universe. It's not even in the same ballpark. To quote Jules from Pulp Fiction, it's not even the same sport.

But yeah, the science-talkers who should know stuff about these things don't think it'll do much, if any, harm to Earth when it happens. But "spectacular" is an appropriate adjective.

I do wonder if that guy running the live video feed is prepared to keep it going for 10,000 years.

No, but he's probably prepared to collect ad revenue from YouTube, taking advantage of the misinformed. Which is why I'm not going to click on that video.

Perhaps I am more cynical than PZ.

To be clear: we don't know enough about stellar lifecycles to predict just when Betelgeuse, or any other star of appropriate mass and age, will become a supernova. When it happens, next year or 10 millennia from now or somewhere in between, if there are still scientists around at that point, we'll learn more.

Hell, even the "650 light years" thing might not be correct. For whatever reason (it's discussed at the link I'm about to provide, though with an overwhelming amount of math), it's incredibly hard to estimate that star's distance with high certainty. Wikipedia   puts it at 400-600 ly, which, even on the low end, is still supposed to be comfortably far for a supernova (though close enough to look awesome).

Now, I've written about the probably-not-a-supernova-anytime-soon bit before, notably here: "Stardust" . Today's update is more about the "live feed" nonsense. And maybe a bit of a distance correction.

If you want a live feed that's actually interesting, I usually remember to check this one   out occasionally around late spring/early summer. Bears!