Will Betelgeuse become a neutron star or black hole.

[josh5813]

Look this up but can't seem to get a straight answer (BTW I ask this after watching a documentary on the star).

[malorob]

only the children of Raxxla can tell you

[josh5813]

Originally posted by malorob:

only the children of Raxxla can tell you

Any case one of the future generations or alien species will be in for one hell of a show. I just wish I could be around to witness it.

[josh5813]

Here's the documentary if any is interested in watching it. Skip to 46:30 if you want to see what it might be like when Betelgeuse dies and humans are still around to witness it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E_KRkUZm3k.

[kevin1957]

i would love to be around when beetlgeuss blows and it will look like a second sun for a couple weeks,but if the star still has 5 or 10 percent of its life left then i guess thats still a way off into the future.

[Sapyx]

You can't get a straight answer because we simply don't know. We don't have enough data about pre-supernova stars, because we've never studied a star in detail then had it subsequently explode on us. SN1987A was the first (and I believe only) time a previously recorded star had ever gone supernova, and we didn't really know much about Sk -69 202 other than that it was a blue supergiant.

The problem seems to be that the resultant supernova remnant is going to be very close to the border between black holes and neutron stars. Which one it becomes depends on the original mass of the star, which we don't have accurate measurements for because Betelgeuse is a solo star, not a binary. We have to guess its mass, based on how bright it is, and therefore the mass estimates are tied to the distance estimates - which also have a high degree of uncertainty; it's somewhere between 613 LY and 881 LY away.

Using the lastest guesstimates of distance, mass and rotation rate, the current theory is that when it does go supernova, Betelgeuse will form a 1.5 solar-mass neutron star.

I should also point out that in ED, Betelgeuse is a lot closer than that; it's only 497 LY away. They have presumably used older data that said Betelgeuse was "about 500 LY away". If Betelgeuse actually were that close, then the probability of it forming a neutron star rather than a black hole increases dramatically, as our mass-estimate would drop.

[josh5813]

Originally posted by kevin1957:

i would love to be around when beetlgeuss blows and it will look like a second sun for a couple weeks,but if the star still has 5 or 10 percent of its life left then i guess thats still a way off into the future.

I love too to be around when it dies but
It won't become a second sun. At best it will be like 100x brighter than a full moon with the sun being like a million times brighter.

[Harbinger]

It could have already gone supernova for all we know. It's so far away we're seeing it as it appeared in the middle ages.

[josh5813]

Originally posted by Harbinger:

It could have already gone supernova for all we know. It's so far away we're seeing it as it appeared in the middle ages.

True

[ZombieHunter]

Originally posted by kevin1957:

i would love to be around when beetlgeuss blows and it will look like a second sun for a couple weeks,but if the star still has 5 or 10 percent of its life left then i guess thats still a way off into the future.

No it won't. It is 450 to 650 light years away. That is not close enough to look like a second sun. We won't even be affected by it. And when it does blow we won't know until 450 to 650 years after it happens.

[josh5813]

Originally posted by ZombieHunter:

Originally posted by kevin1957:

i would love to be around when beetlgeuss blows and it will look like a second sun for a couple weeks,but if the star still has 5 or 10 percent of its life left then i guess thats still a way off into the future.

No it won't. It is 450 to 650 light years away. That is not close enough to look like a second sun. We won't even be affected by it. And when it does blow we won't know until 450 to 650 years after it happens.

At best if humans are still around when Betelgeuse explodes we'll be able to see it during the day since it will be around 100x brighter than a full moon (which you can also see during the day if it's clear and the moon is on the day side) and will be unmistakably visible during the night.

The "Betelgeuse will be so bright when it explodes it will look like a second sun and or will light up the night as if it's the middle of the day" stories fall into the same category as the old be still recurring made up stories such as "Mars on it closest approach to Earth will make it appear as large if not larger than the moon in the night sky".

[ZombieHunter]

You guys should go visit it in ED. I was there last night. That thing is massive. I don't mean massive as in dense, but massive as in size. Huge doesn't describe it. Go land on one of the two landable planets and then look at the star. Unbelievable. You can see solar storms from the planet surface. Now that is a big star. The first landable surface temperature is around 1100 F. But I was able to find lots of metals there even though they would likely be liquid or pretty near liquid in real life. Also the second landable has 1.4% antimony. I surface mined materials for a bit and came away with about 20 antimony.