12-09-2018, 05:41 PM
The universe is populated by billions upon billions of stars. One of the very largest stars is Betelgeuse, which sits 640 light years away from us, and has a diameter around 950 times that of the Sun. It's also the 9th-brightest star in the night sky, and you've almost certainly seen it, even if you didn't realise it: it's the star in the top left of Orion (the one marked in orange in this image.
The other important thing about Betelgeuse is that it's at a very late stage of its life: it's expected to go supernova within the next million years (and indeed, it might already have gone supernova at some point within the last 640 years, and we'd be none the wiser ). Because it's so large, and because it's so close to Earth, this supernova would easily be the brightest ever to be seen from Earth. The following video by V101 Science shows, in 4k HD, just what it would look like:
Quite spectacular, really . It'd produce a heck of a lot of radiation, but the good news is, it's just too far away to cause any real problems!
The other important thing about Betelgeuse is that it's at a very late stage of its life: it's expected to go supernova within the next million years (and indeed, it might already have gone supernova at some point within the last 640 years, and we'd be none the wiser ). Because it's so large, and because it's so close to Earth, this supernova would easily be the brightest ever to be seen from Earth. The following video by V101 Science shows, in 4k HD, just what it would look like:
Quite spectacular, really . It'd produce a heck of a lot of radiation, but the good news is, it's just too far away to cause any real problems!
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