Posted BY: Wyatt | NwoReport
The Earth might soon be in for a spectacular show in both the nighttime and the day, as our stellar neighbor Betelgeuse approaches its end of days.
Betelgeuse, a star around 650 light years away from Earth, has been getting increasingly bright, hitting 142 percent of its usual luminosity at the end of May, leading scientists to suggest it might be fixing to go supernova—a huge explosion that occurs at the end of a star’s life.
If this dramatic star death occurs during our lifetimes, it is expected to appear as a huge bright patch in the sky during both the day and night, around the same brightness as the full moon at its peak.
Trending: The court characterizes the unborn as ‘trash set out in a garbage can’
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant around 15 to 20 times more massive than the sun, and around 1,400 times the size, located in the constellation of Orion.
“[After the supernova] Betelgeuse would then fade over the next several months but remain visible in the daytime for six to 12 months. At night, you should be able to see it with the naked eye for another one or two years. But after that, we would never see it again—Orion would forever lose its red sparkle,” Albert Zijlstra, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Manchester, wrote in an article for the Conversation.
