Answer and Explanation: Betelgeuse is approximately 624.1 light-years away from the sun. This means it is still in the Milky Way galaxy, the same galaxy we are in, but it is farther away from us than many of our neighboring stars. Light-years are the distance light can travel in one Earth year.
To answer the distance question first, Betelgeuse is approximately 724 light-years away. But getting that answer, even for a relatively nearby star, is surprisingly difficult. Check out the 2023 EarthSky lunar calendar.
Betelgeuse is about 7,500 to 14,000 times brighter than the Sun. Betelgeuse is also one of the largest stars visible to the unaided eye. It's about 700 times the size of the Sun and around 15 times more massive.
Answer: Betelgeuse is 650 light years from Earth so it takes light 650 years to reach us . If the explosion happened in the Year 3000 AD, then we will see the light arrive in the year 3650 AD, 650 years AFTER the event occurred.
Neil deGrasse Tyson Very Emotional After Betelgeuse Exploded
Is Betelgeuse going supernova 2023?
Either way, it seems likely that Betelgeuse will be the Milky Way galaxy's next supernova but this wouldn't happen anytime soon. It could even be another 100,000 years before Betelgeuse's light is finally extinguished.
But Betelgeuse is actually 300 times more luminous or brighter than Sirius. That is, Betelgeuse actually emits far more energy than Sirius. The reason is that Betelgeuse is just much further away from us than Sirius; thus, apparently less bright or dimmer.
Betelgeuse is easily discernible to even the casual observer, not only because of its brightness and position in the brilliant Orion but also because of its deep reddish colour. The star is approximately 548 light-years from Earth. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star roughly 764 times as large as the Sun.
“We conclude that Betelgeuse should currently be in a late phase (or near the end) of the core carbon burning,” the paper notes. “After carbon is exhausted in the core, a core-collapse leading to a supernova explosion is expected in in a few tens [of] years.”
The closest star to us is actually our very own Sun at 93,000,000 miles (150,000,000 km). The next closest star is Proxima Centauri. It lies at a distance of about 4.3 light-years or about 25,300,000,000,000 miles (about 39,900,000,000,000 kilometers).
Betelgeuse is an enormous star. If we were to place it at the center of our solar system, it would extend all the way to Jupiter. The star's size, combined with its position in our galaxy, the Milky Way, allows astronomers to study Betelgeuse in better detail than most stars.
Betelgeuse is the 10th brightest star in the night sky, making it easy for us to spot. Just like with Rigel, we want to look over towards Swampy Summit in the northwest.
To the ancient Egyptians, the constellation was Osiris, a god and primeval king in the culture's mythology. In some myths originating in the Americas, Betelgeuse represented a wound on Orion, perhaps because of the star's red color.
Gaia BH1 is located 1,560 light-years away from Earth, while Gaia BH2 lies around 3,800 light-years away. Even though this means both black holes are located in Earth's backyard (in cosmic terms, at least),they are still over 10 and 20 times as far away as the Hyades cluster and its potential black hole duo or trio.
Betelgeuse is the brightest star in Orion and marks the western shoulder of the constellation. Betelgeuse is one of the largest known stars and is probably at least the size of the orbits of Mars or Jupiter around the sun. That's a diameter about 700 times the size of the Sun or 600 million miles.
Its absolute magnitude is about −6. Less than 10 million years old, Betelgeuse has evolved rapidly because of its large mass and is expected to end its evolution with a supernova explosion, most likely within 100,000 years.
Although some hype up Betelgeuse's looming doom, its coming explosion, called a supernova, might not happen for at least tens of thousands of years, if not more like some 100,000.
What will the sky look like when Betelgeuse explodes?
If Betelgeuse were to go supernova, it would likely be visible from Earth as an incredibly bright celestial event. The explosion could potentially rival the brightness of a full moon and provide a captivating spectacle in the night sky.
Will its supernova destroy Earth? Whenever Betelgeuse does blow up, our planet Earth is too far away for this explosion to harm, much less destroy, life on Earth. Studies indicate we'd have to be within 160 light-years of a supernova for it to harm us. And Betelgeuse is perhaps four times this distance.
Betelgeuse is about 15 to 20 times more massive than the Sun, and stars of this mass are expected to end their lives in a powerful explosion known as a supernova. Betelgeuse's red colour shows it is a red supergiant, meaning it's already approaching the end of its life. But that end may still be a million years away.
Life on Earth will be unharmed. But that doesn't mean it will go unnoticed. Goldberg and Bauer found that when Betelgeuse explodes, it will shine as bright as the half-Moon — nine times fainter than the full Moon — for more than three months. “All this brightness would be concentrated into one point,” Howell says.
In 1836, the astronomer John Herschel discovered that Betelgeuse was a variable star (meaning that its brightness changes as it expands and contracts) varying by approximately one magnitude over a period of 5.7 to 6.4 years. Betelgeuse is 640 light-years from Earth, and it is in the final stages of stellar evolution.
The biggest star in the universe (that we know of), UY Scuti is a variable hypergiant with a radius around 1,700 times larger than the radius of the sun. To put that in perspective, the volume of almost 5 billion suns could fit inside a sphere the size of UY Scuti.
