Pronunciation of "Betelgeuse".

[caerau]

apparently it's about to go off in a very big bang, (I blame global warming)

would be quite something to watch if it did go all supernova in our time, may be even see it during the day?

It may have already happened but the light hasn't reached us yet.....

As it's 640 light years away, if it went off after 1380.... we would know yet.

A star as close as that going Supernovae would not be all that funny unfortunately.  Maybe look up a recent theory for the extinction of the Megalodon for a start https://earthsky.org/earth/supernovae-killed-off-megalodon-large-ocean-animals-extinction-pleistocene

[Wowbagger]

Surely if you're a Penelope of any flavour, you absolutely must have a pony.

I don't know about my cousin, but my pal Penelope had a much, much bigger horse. Hunter-thoroughbred cross, which sounds impressive. No idea how many hands*, but it had 4 hooves. It was about 5' 8", or head height for her, at the withers, so she told me. I'm not sure what a wither is. If the Lord be withers...

*My friendly horse conversion chart tells me 17. Do they do metric horses?

[Wowbagger]

A star as close as that going Supernovae would not be all that funny unfortunately.  Maybe look up the most popular theory for the extinction of the Megalodon for a start

Maybe climate change doesn't matter after all...

[fuzzy]

The imminance of the imminant supenova status of Betelgeuse (Betel gause for me) means any time within the next million years or so.

Whenever it does go, astronomers around the world know that it will be on a cloudy night.

[Kim]

*My friendly horse conversion chart tells me 17. Do they do metric horses?

Funnily enough, I've just failed to persuade WolframAlpha to convert moosepower to kilowatts.  Because Canadians.

[andrew_s]

Do they do metric horses?

divide hands by 10, and you've got a metric horse.

[caerau]

The imminance of the imminant supenova status of Betelgeuse (Betel gause for me) means any time within the next million years or so.

Whenever it does go, astronomers around the world know that it will be on a cloudy night.

 


(though it's actually going to brighter than the moon and last for a month or so )


having done a bit more reading on this...  we should be safe - it seems the critical distance for a supernova to be 'safe' (for us) is to be 150 million light years away or more and Betelgeuse is much further away than that - though still a quite 'local' star.

[Mr Larrington]

More unit confusion perhaps?  Betelgeuse is ~ 700 light years from Planet Dirt.

[ian]

So it could have gone *pop* 699 years and 364 and a bit days ago.