Episode 606: Betelgeuse Is Dimmer Than We've Ever Seen It

Over the last weekend, astronomy Twitter started noting that the red giant Betelgeuse, the prominent shoulder of Orion was looking visibly dimmer in the sky, and I had a few people reach out to me and ask me if it was really happening and if I knew what was going on.This is exciting, of course, because Betelgeuse is living on borrowed time, and it could explode as a supernova any day now. Or, it might not detonate for another 100,000 years. We just don’t know.What’s Betelgeuse up to? Is this a sign that it’s about to explode? And what would it mean if it did?Our Book is out!https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Today-Ultimate-Viewing-Cosmos/dp/1624145442/Audio Podcast version:ITunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/universe-today-guide-to-space-audio/id794058155?mt=2RSS: https://www.universetoday.com/audioWeekly email newsletter:https://www.universetoday.com/newsletterWeekly Space Hangout:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/Astronomy Cast:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUHI67dh9jEO2rvK--MdCSgSupport us at https://www.patreon.com/universetodayMore stories at https://www.universetoday.com/Twitch: https://twitch.tv/fcainTwitter: @universetodayFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetodayInstagram - https://instagram.com/universetodayTeam: Fraser Cain - @fcain / [email protected] Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fwChad Weber - [email protected]:https://twitter.com/starstrickenSF/status/1209207523179237376https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/what-will-happen-when-betelgeuse-explodes-df5b04164b2https://www.eso.org/public/usa/images/potw1726b/https://hubblesite.org/image/4027/galleryhttps://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0708a/http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=13341https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/feature1.shtmlhttps://twitter.com/starstrickenSF/status/1209242710281986048https://www.astro.princeton.edu/~gk/A403/pulse.pdfhttps://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01852.pdfhttps://aasnova.org/2018/01/03/astrophysics-of-red-supergiants/https://neutrinos.fnal.gov/sources/supernova-neutrinos/https://snews.bnl.gov/https://researchblog.duke.edu/2014/01/22/supernova-explosion-in-m82-exciting-but-no-neutrinos/https://aasnova.org/2018/04/20/capturing-neutrinos-from-a-stars-final-hours/https://www.phys.hawaii.edu/~jgl/nuastron.htmlSupport Universe Today Podcast