logo
Huge orange star above Earth could explode at any moment

Huge orange star above Earth could explode at any moment

Yahoo04-04-2025

Humanity may be about to experience the first supernova visible to the naked eye in over 400 years, as a supergiant star appears to be close to exploding.
Not one to be overshadowed by 'trade wars', actual wars and asteroids which were but now aren't a threat to Earth; it would appear one of the stars in the night sky may now be gearing up for a colossal cosmic event.
According to astronomers, the Betelgeuse red supergiant star, appears to be on its last legs due to its increasingly volatile behaviour in the past couple of years.
Situated in the Orion constellation, Betelgeuse is noticeable in the night sky thanks to its orange glow. However this may not be the case for much longer.
Back in 2019, NASA noted that Betelgeuse's brightness dimmed by about 60%, leading some scientists to wonder if it was entering a 'pre-supernova' phase, an event later explained as a a surface mass ejection.
Fast forward four years and the star would begin acting up once again, with The Guardian explaining that Betelgeuse was glowing and dimming at 'twice as fast as usual', and in 2024 the American Association of Variable Star Observers revealed how the star had dimmed by 0.5 in the opening months of the year.
So, what's going on?
Well it's a bit of a good news/bad news situation on that front.
It's impossible to predict exactly when the star will explode, however, scientists predict Betelgeuse will enter into a supernova anywhere within the next 10,000 to 100,000 years.
Which means you could very well look out your window tomorrow and witness a supernova — or this could happen on any of the other 99,999 years.
"We conclude that Betelgeuse is... a good candidate for the next galactic supernova," wrote the authors of one study, which predicted it could be in as little as 'tens of years'.
EarthSky adds that Betelgeuse is also between 430 light-years and 643 light-years away from Earth, so we wouldn't see it immediately.
For those who can vaguely recall their school science lessons, the death of a star is marked by an explosion, which ejects gas and various matter into the galaxy, before it collapses into a black hole.
Which would be very bad news — if the star was close enough to impact Earth.
Fortunately, this isn't the case with Betelgeuse.
Given that we're at a safe enough distance, astronomers are excited by the prospect of witnessing the Betelgeuse supernova. According to Big Think, the exploding star would 'shine approximately as brightly as the full Moon' and reach maximum brightness after around '10 days.'

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

What a Spiral in the Oort Cloud Could Mean for Life on Earth
What a Spiral in the Oort Cloud Could Mean for Life on Earth

Yahoo

time26 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

What a Spiral in the Oort Cloud Could Mean for Life on Earth

A routine planetarium show at New York's Hayden Planetarium just triggered a potentially historic discovery in astrophysics. While curating scenes for 'Encounters in the Milky Way,' a team of scientists and animators stumbled across something surprising: a spiral structure hidden within the data modeling the Oort Cloud, which is one of the most mysterious regions in our solar system. The Oort Cloud, theorized to be a spherical shell of icy objects orbiting far beyond Neptune, has long remained unseen. Yet when astrophysicist Jackie Faherty noticed the unexpected shape during a simulation, she called in Oort Cloud expert David Nesvorny to investigate, according to a CNN report. It wasn't an animation glitch. It was real data. Nesvorny, who had generated the simulation, admitted he'd never viewed his data in three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates. When he did, the spiral structure emerged clearly. 'Weird way to discover things,' he said. 'I should know my data better.' This accidental find prompted Nesvorny to run weeks of simulations on NASA's Pleiades Supercomputer. Every model confirmed it: a spiral, caused not by the sun's gravity alone, but by the galactic tide—the pull of the Milky Way's own gravitational field acting on the outermost parts of our solar system. Ultimately, he published the findings in The Astrophysics Journal. The discovery reshapes long-held assumptions. While the outer Oort Cloud might still be spherical, the inner part appears to twist in a spiral pattern, suggesting our solar system is more dynamically connected to the galaxy than once thought. Still, verifying the spiral won't be easy. The icy bodies in the Oort Cloud are too small and distant to observe directly. Even with the powerful new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, scientists expect to find only a handful—far short of the numbers needed to fully confirm the structure. But as Faherty put it, the dome of a planetarium can now double as a tool of discovery. 'This is science that hasn't had time to reach your textbook yet,' she said. What a Spiral in the Oort Cloud Could Mean for Life on Earth first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 11, 2025

Photos: Strawberry Moon wows across the world
Photos: Strawberry Moon wows across the world

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Photos: Strawberry Moon wows across the world

June's Strawberry Moon put on a show around the world with a slight berry hue and a view low on the horizon for the first time since last summer. The Strawberry Moon reached peak illumination around 3 a.m. on Wednesday and appeared full and bright on Tuesday evening. The video at the top of this story was taken on Tuesday from Chicago, where the lucky photographer captured a helicopter and plane passing in front of the glowing Moon. The final full Moon of spring is named the Strawberry Moon for the time when the berries are ripe for picking and also the slight reddish hue because it is lower in the sky. "When it spends more of that time in that lower portion of the sky, you're looking through more of Earth's atmosphere, which makes these moons generally look redder and more golden," said Dr. Tyler Richey-Yowell, a postdoctoral fellow at Lowell Observatory in Arizona. This golden glow was on display Tuesdsay night in New York City, where the Empire State Building and the Moon made a beautiful pair. How To Photograph The Moon With Your Phone In Florida, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft presented a trifecta of space with the Moon looming large in the night sky. Saharan dust moving up the Southeast coast could have contributed to the yellow and orange tint of the Moon on Tuesday. Wildfire smoke provided an added boost to the red coloring of the Moon in Columbus, Ohio, as the image below shows. In the United Kingdom, the Moon appeared berry red near the northeast coast of England along Whitley Bay. A golden Moon appeared peaking out from behind the mausoleum of Mustafa in Turkey on Tuesday in the creatively set image article source: Photos: Strawberry Moon wows across the world

NASA is shutting down some official social media accounts, including the Curiosity rover's handle
NASA is shutting down some official social media accounts, including the Curiosity rover's handle

Engadget

timean hour ago

  • Engadget

NASA is shutting down some official social media accounts, including the Curiosity rover's handle

NASA is shutting down several social media accounts run by the Science Mission Directorate, including the official Mars Curiosity Rover account on X. The organization says it made the decision in order to "make its work more accessible to the public, avoiding the potential for oversaturation or confusion." The "social media consolidation project" is concentrated in part on X, where there are dozens NASA accounts affiliated with specific missions and areas of research. So far 29 accounts are being archived or consolidated with other accounts, including @MarsCuriosity and @NASAPersevere, the two accounts for the organization's Mars rovers. Posts about both missions will now come from the more general @NASAMars. Some social media accounts will also "rebranded to better align with the new strategic framework," NASA says, "reflecting a broader scope or a more direct connection to core NASA initiatives." With "over 400 individual accounts across 15 platforms" it's not exactly unreasonable that NASA is trying to streamline things, but there is some much appreciated specificity lost when news and information is coming from a more general account. NASA's Curiosity is beloved and the agency's research into Mars was likely more well-known because the social media account made identifying with the rover easier. Beyond social media accounts, NASA could be heading into next year with far fewer resources in general. The Trump administration's proposed 2026 budget includes around a $6 billion cut to NASA's funding. The limited resources could lead to multiple planned missions being cancelled The Washington Post reports, including sending a probe to Venus, taking mineral samples from asteroids and studying gravitational waves with the European Space Agency.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store