Was a “spinning” betelgeuse our last hope of seeing a star “going supernova”? No there is another one

Do you remember the “great gradation of Betelgeuse?”

A bright red super giant star in our galaxy approaching the end of its life, probably Betelgeuse will explode like a supernova and be visible in daylight for the next 100,000 years, but its recent episode of dimming – which saw it lose two-thirds of its brilliance in February 2020 – appears to have been just… dust.

Observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope show that the unexpected gradation of the supergiant star was most likely caused by hot material being ejected into space that formed a cloud of dust that blocked starlight from the surface of Betelgeuse. .

For a while, Betelgeuse was almost absent from the action, and there was speculation that she could “become a supernova”.

Why? “No one knows how a star behaves in the weeks leading up to its explosion, and there were worrying predictions that Betelgeuse was poised to become a supernova,” said Andrea Dupree, associate director of the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard & Smithsonian. “There’s a good chance it won’t explode in our lifetime, but who knows?”

So what stars could explode soon into a supernova?

Why Betelgeuse?

Betelgeuse isn’t the only star that could explode, but there’s good reason it’s getting so much attention. “This is one of the closest red supergiant and it is one that we can have an extremely good and clear look at,” said Emily Levesque, astronomer and assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Washington. , and author of The Last Astronomers: The Eternal Story of the Endangered Explorers of Astronomy. She is renowned for her work on massive stars. “If you had to name very nearby stars that are most likely to become supernovae, then Betelgeuse would definitely be on the list.”

Betelgeuse has become a favorite of many astronomers who study red supergiants, but in addition to appearing to be calmed down and regaining its normal brightness, Betelgeuse is not even visible at the moment.

It’s in the daytime sky in August, so even if it were to become a supernova now, we wouldn’t see much of it. Of course, we might be able to see her as a very bright star during the day, but that would be a disappointing sight compared to seeing a supernova in a dark sky as well.

Where should supernova hunters look for a supernova?

The hunt for supernova does not end with starting in Betelgeuse, and luckily, the other main candidates for supernovae can be seen in the night sky at other times of the year.

Antares

“Another good candidate is Antares,” said Levesque. “She’s another extremely nearby red supergiant in the constellation Scorpio, so she would be an interesting candidate.”

Antares is 600 light years away, so slightly closer to us than Betelgeuse, about 730 light years away. It is also roughly the same size as Betelgeuse. It is visible from both hemispheres from roughly March to October.

And Carinae

“A big star in the southern hemisphere is a star called Eta Carinae,” Levesque said. “He’s another candidate that I think would be fun for everyone to keep an eye on.” At more than 8000 light years, Eta Carinae is several tens of times more massive than our Sun – a star “hypergiant” – and approaches the end of its life; it suffered a “great eruption” in 1843 and now looks like two huge clouds of gas with a bright star in the center.

Plus, Eta Carinae is getting progressively brighter … so who knows?

Why red super giant stars?

Red supergiants are in the class of massive stars – they are at least eight times as massive as our Sun, and because they are so massive that they go through this very dramatic 10 million year lifespan, ”he said. Levesque said.

By stellar standards, it’s super short, but there are types of stars that can “go supernova”. “There are other types of massive stars that interest us because they could also potentially give us supernovae and they could answer questions about the birth of supernovae and how stars like this function,” Levesque said. .

Other stars relatively close to us could go supernova include Deneb, Rigel and Spica, the latter two visually close to Betelgeuse in the night sky. Research also suggests that a star called V Sagittae, 7,800 light years away in the tiny constellation Sagitta, could explode around 2083.

So if you’re on the hunt for a supernova, be aware that Betelgeuse isn’t the only star that might explode.

I wish you clear skies and wide eyes.