Wonders of the Universe by Professor Brian Cox & Andrew Cohen

Author:Professor Brian Cox & Andrew Cohen [Cox, Professor Brian & Cohen, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780007413379
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2011-03-03T08:00:00+00:00

One of the prime candidates is Orion’s shining red jewel, Betelgeuse. With so many telescopes trained on this nearby star, we have been able to follow its every move for decades. Charting its brightness, we have discovered that it is extremely unstable; it has dimmed by about 15 per cent in the past decade. As supernova candidates go, Betelgeuse is top of the list. It is generally thought that Betelgeuse could go supernova at any time. It is a relatively young star, perhaps only ten million years old, and has sped through its life cycle so rapidly because it is so massive. However, when you’re ten million years old, the end of your life can be quite drawn out and a phrase like ‘any time soon’ in stellar terms is not quite what you might expect. It means that Betelgeuse should go supernova at some point in the next million years, but equally it could explode tomorrow. What we do know is that when it does go it will provide us with quite a show. Betelgeuse is only 500 light years away, almost uncomfortably close, which means that the explosion will be incredibly bright. It will be by far the brightest star in the sky and it may even shine as brightly as a full moon at night and fill the sky as a second sun during the day.

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