Two years ago, NASA scientists captured images of a dimming star and concluded that it marked the beginning of a supernova event, where a star reaches the end of its life cycle and explodes.
According to Cnet, the red supergiant star Betelgeuse is nearing the end of its life, according to cosmic time scales. Since 2019, astronomers have been utilizing NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories to confirm the hypothesis that we may soon witness the explosion of this star.
After analyzing the data, scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics concluded that only a portion of Betelgeuse’s surface exploded, ejecting a substantial amount of material into space. If the supernova explosion has already occurred in the past, it is still not observable from Earth.
In 2019, researchers referred to the event of Betelgeuse dimming as “surface mass ejection” (SME), similar to solar flares, where the star ejects material directly into space. Each solar flare typically causes auroras and radio disruptions on Earth.
However, the explosion on the surface of Betelgeuse is estimated to be about 400 billion times larger than an average surface mass ejection.
Image of the Betelgeuse star partially exploding, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. (Photo: NASA).
“We have never seen such a large mass ejection on the surface of a star. Something is happening that we do not fully understand.”
“It’s a new phenomenon that we can only observe and interpret surface details through Hubble. In addition, our team is tracking the evolution of stars in real time,” said Andrea Dupree, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Moreover, since this star is in its final stages, its diameter continues to expand dramatically, estimated to be around one billion miles. If we were to place Betelgeuse where the Sun is, it would extend beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
Bright stars like Betelgeuse have relatively short lifespans. Specifically, the Sun is currently in its “middle age” at 5 billion years old. In contrast, stars like Betelgeuse have lifespans of only about 10 million years. Therefore, scientists predict that a supernova explosion could occur within the next 100,000 years.
Image of Betelgeuse taken in 2019 from the Hubble telescope. (Photo: NASA).
Betelgeuse was once one of the ten brightest stars in the sky as observed from Earth. The explosion on its surface created a dust cloud around the star, significantly blurring images captured in 2019. For several months in 2019 and 2020, scientists speculated that this dimming could be a precursor to the star becoming a supernova, an event where a star explodes at the end of its life cycle.
Ultimately, evidence of the massive explosion has been presented. Dupree added that if Betelgeuse were to completely explode, we could observe it directly from Earth, even during the daytime.
The most recent supernova explosion recorded in the Milky Way was documented by astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1604. According to records from that time, the light could be seen in the sky for about three weeks. The star SN 1604 is located approximately 20,000 light-years from Earth. In contrast, the distance from Betelgeuse to Earth is nearly ten times closer than the explosion in 1604.
