Betelguese going supernova?

If night dissapeared, how would the following be effected?
- Plantlife
- Global temerature
- Animal behaviour
- Ocean Water Evaporation / Ocean Tides
- Stargazing / Exploring the Universe

and most importantly, Daylight Savings Time.

I happen to love DST as it sometimes gives me an extra hour to drink my milk before it expires.

I cannot see myself living if that is no longer a possibility.

Also, manipulation of media, government, religion and science already exist. If night dissapears, are we then open to calendar manipulation?

reply to post by InTrueFiction


Good Point on the Gamma Ray bursts, however there s still the "Shockwave" and all it heats up on its way to us, therefore maybe changing orbits etc, I would find very interesting the effect if this happened on the Dyson Sphere of the solar system or the hypothesised boundary/bubble between our solar system and the vacuum beyond it.

Also the effects for example on the asteroid belt are unknonw and may be enough to cause havoc.

As said good point about the gamma rays they certainly do represent the greatest risk to life on earth, and I forgot about the directional narrow beam nature of them. Some years ago I remember reading that it is possible if a Gamma Buy Burst of the strength as some have been recorded at, directly hit the erath, even if the source was in another galaxy far far away from our own it would fry us all.

I still think this warrants more attention than most of the doom stuff out there, as changes have been observed, it is close, and probably is about as risky to life on earth due the unknonw effects of one soo close as a mild yellowstone caldera event, both will happen, hopefully not soon.


Elf

What exactly is this consciousness shift everyone speaks of? Sounds like fictional mumbo jumbo IMO.

reply to post by patmac


Night wont disappear. Not from this star anyways.

besides we have had supernovas in the past aswell.

Live on earth has been around for long enough and as far as i know we cant link a mass extinction event with any supernova.

reply to post by MischeviousElf


If by "shockwave" mean the neutrinos released by the explosion, well, they don't do much. There are a gazillion of them flying right through you as you read this.

If you mean the other remnants of the star, well, there isn't much to worry about there either (from Betelguese anyway). This shockwave moves very much slower than the speed of light. At first it's going at about 3% the speed of light. This lasts about 200 years before it starts to really slow down. In 200 years the shockwave of Betelguese will expand to a distance of 6.67 light years. It will be a very long time and the shockwave will be very diffuse before it reaches Earth.

Hoagland doesn't even write good science fiction.

[edit on 9/15/2009 by Phage]

nightlessness would be a unique experience. more time to meditate I supposed.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by MischeviousElf

 

If by "shockwave" mean the neutrinos released by the explosion, well, they don't do much. There are a gazillion of them flying right through you as you read this

I would be more worried about gamma rays than the emitted neutrinos. . . !

Originally posted by tomcat ha
besides we have had supernovas in the past aswell.

Live on earth has been around for long enough and as far as i know we cant link a mass extinction event with any supernova.

exackly man. what the crab nubular today its star went supernova like 900 years ago and that was picked up upon by chinese astronomers. cept they didnt know what it was.

i personally assuming it wont kill us with a gamma ray burst would love to see a supernova.

reply to post by clay2 baraka

It's been pointed out that the orientation of Betelgeuse precludes a gamma burst in our direction.

reply to post by Phage


Ah, got it! Thanks.

reply to post by Phage


indeedy at the time of the event.

However due to its mass It would be a type 11 supernova event which would then lead to a Black hole.

And it would I believe then be 3 times closer than any other known black hole to earth! there was one years ago found in sagitarius which i think is about 1500 light years away,

Blackholes themselves do produce jets of radiation, and the angles etc currently observed would not be, as no previous observations have been made of such a close type II supernova truning into a blackhole... bit difficult really as we know to do any observations of the Black hole itself only its effects... well then we could not safely say that high density jets of energy and radiation wouldnt then eminate directly to earth.

No one knows what direction axis, spin and behaviour would become the norm of the Black hole after forming, and what viables in this behaviour it would exhibit.

Some Supernova also produce a "kick" when the event happens meaning the object/ black hole as observed in some case's of Nuetrino stars in type 1a can move from the events positions at huge speedsup to if memory serves me right between 500- 1000 km/s.

Therefore a massive black hole not supermassive but big, could already be very close to earth compared to any other known one, could be sending jets of very focused energy towards earth and maybe heading in our direction at such a speed that it is already a lot lot lot closer than we see Betleguise now!

None of the above is science fiction Phage.

He is right to bring this out into awareness as shown above, however as I first stated it's hoagland so poetic license and sensationalism is expected.

I know I will be keeping a closer look on its activities(really history) as they change from our perspective to see what may be heading our way one day soon.

Kind Regards,

Elf

reply to post by MischeviousElf

Betelgeuse's mass is at the lower end of the range to produce a black hole. It depends on how much mass remains after the supernova but the most likely outcome is that it will become a neutron star rather than a black hole.

In any case the core will maintain its angular momentum and continue to spin with the same, or close to the same, axis it now has. We know that axis and we know that it is not "aimed" at us.

I don't know what this "kick" you speak of could be, but in cosmic terms, 1000 km/s is not very fast. As I pointed out, the initial shockwave from the supernova travels at speeds near 10,000 km/s. But even at that speed it takes 200 years to move 1/100th of the distance between Earth and Betelgeuse.

It is unlikely that there is a dangerous black hole closer to us than Betelgeuse. If it had formed in the past 640 years, the supernova would have been quite noticeable (as will Betelgeuse when it goes). If it formed long, long ago and one of its jets was pointed in our direction, we would know about it. It's radiation would be here. We have many instruments which scan the entire sky looking for just such things.

By the way, you seem to have a different definition of science fiction than I do. I consider it to be fiction which is based on scientific fact. Since black holes are scientific fact there is no reason they cannot be used in science fiction. Perhaps you mean fantasy. In that case you are correct, black holes are not fantasy. Star Wars is fantasy, not science fiction.

reply to post by Phage

By the way, you seem to have a different definition of science fiction than I do. I consider it to be fiction which is based on scientific fact.

Really Phage,

Lets explore that in more detail in regards to this post shall we?

Betelgeuse's mass is at the lower end of the range to produce a black hole.

Really? What Science class taught you that then?

Amazing there are any Blackholes occurring in the universe at all, and astonishing that on average a Supernova goes off about every 50 years in our galaxy alone...

where are all the bigger stars hiding then phage?

as it is KNOWN in real science that Supernovas cause black holes....

Betelgeuse is a red supergiant
relatively luminous, and one of the largest stars known

Absolute Astronomy

Please dont try and go into volume against mass etc, as its volume is soo huge it precludes that angle... anyhow it is at least 20 times more massive than the sun.

It depends on how much mass remains after the supernova but the most likely outcome is that it will become a neutron star rather than a black hole.

And why on earth would that be?
How could it become a Neutron star when that has at least the mass of 20 suns when the Neutron stars are created from supernova with a sun mass range up to 3 solar masses!!!

Your hard science if about 7 times out in mass, pretty fictionous to me wouldnt you agree?

If the mass exceeds about three solar masses, then even neutron degeneracy will not stop the collapse, and the core shrinks toward the black hole condition

Hyperphysics Edu

Also as you have been postulating during the entire thread the ridiculousness of any effects on the earth from this event....

Well as I am sure you know Perfect Science Phage.... that a Nuetron star or type 1a supernova classification, which you ascribe to Betleguise also could form a white dwarf....

would be the most dangerous option, as the risk of affecting the earth then becomes possible over HUGE distances....

theory suggests that a Type Ia supernova would have to be closer than a thousand parsecs (3300 light-years) to affect the Earth.

www.absoluteastronomy.com..." target="_blank" class="postlink">1

So obviously this couldnt happen, as even arm chair astronomers, not reading science fiction books, know that a white dwarf is created from a dim star, probably iron core and dense, whereas as shown above our candidate is the exact opposite.

Just pointing out if your argument was even moderately accurate scientifically, the very thing you use your pseudo science to argue against would be more likely to happen

So to continue...

I don't know what this "kick" you speak of could be,

Well no obviously not. Its known in science as Asymmetry.

Ad it in this field does not mean how balanced your features are comapred to anothers

Its the well known effect observed, but little understood during the phase transition of the supernova event and the end status, be it black hole, nuetron star, white dwarf etc....

The "Object" or thing created from the supernova event does not stay in the same place, on the same orbit, in the same part of space and time as the original star's lifespan characteristics, that produced the supernova and "object"....

Whatever type of supernova will determine what Object is created, but that object will be moving at a high velocity AWAY from the point of the supernova event (Asymmetry) and all previous recorded orbits, positions will be of no bearing on the new objects movement, axis, velocity etc...

The movement is very rapid, and neither direction, velocity or Plane can be predicted from previous observations and data of the Star before the event of Supernova happens or occurs.

I show this below.

It also totally and completely nullifies the following quote of yours to as being very ignorant indeed on this topic

In any case the core will maintain its angular momentum and continue to spin with the same, or close to the same, axis it now has. We know that axis and we know that it is not "aimed" at us.

Totally Wrong and shows a real lack of any depth of any astronomy, space & time conceptualisation, and understasning of the processes of star deaths.

A long-standing puzzle surrounding supernovae has been a need to explain why the compact object remaining after the explosion is given a large velocity away from the core [snip] This kick can be substantial, propelling an object of more than a solar mass at a velocity of 500 km/s or greater.

This displacement is believed to be caused by an asymmetry in the explosion, but the mechanism by which this momentum is transferred to the compact object has remained a puzzle. Some explanations for this kick include convection in the collapsing star and jet production during neutron star formation.

1

but in cosmic terms, 1000 km/s is not very fast.

I think you get a bit confused phage between macro and micro, between the world of the very samll and very big.

IMHO 1/300th the speed of light is pretty rapid for a object like a black hole to be created and just start moving from that point of creation away. It is quick a high velocity for such large objects, we are talking red shift effects here. The guys at Goddard seem to think it is worth calling it a "large Velocity"... I think I will agree with them thank you.

I would be carefull using the phrase to "in cosmic terms" until you fully grasp it.

As I pointed out,

Again wrongly in your previous post, though I am not questioning your math on the below.....

the initial shockwave from the supernova travels at speeds near 10,000 km/s.

Indeedy.... and look

Astronomers have suspected for more than a decade that supernova shock waves can act like giant particle accelerators. The basic idea is this: As the remnant of a dead star hurtles through space at up to 30 million kilometers per hour, it creates a shock wave as it interacts with the so-called interstellar medium (ISM). Protons in the shock wave get trapped by the magnetic field of the ISM, which bounces the protons back toward the remnant. But the remnant has its own magnetic field, which repels the protons.

Each bounce adds more energy, and eventually the magnetic tennis match accelerates the protons to nearly the speed of light. Knocked free of the remnant and out into deep space, some of the protons finally hit Earth's atmosphere. The particles are so energetic that astronauts have reported seeing flashes of light--caused by single protons striking their retinas--even when their eyes are closed.

2

It is unlikely that there is a dangerous black hole closer to us than Betelgeuse.

Well Phage as I pointed out the closest one is about 3 times further away.

Betlguise could be a black hole now, travelling towards the earth at a fairly quick rate, it is impossible to know this, or what plane angle path etc it may be one, or if any of the jets of high energy particles from black holes is heading, or could head directly to earth in the future.

Phew I didnt want to go digging up stuff I knew and read aboput years ago but phage..... look at your lats paragraph of your post I replied too...

You might kid some of the people some time, but not all of them all the time matey, I tend to write in relaxed fun debateable way, but dont even attempt to try and patronise me in this field, and many other science ones.

Being strong at maths does not make you a scientist by the way.

The Skeptic has shown be skepticalised, the scientist not using science and the intelluctual a fool.

However as Buddha said the fool is only foolish if he thinks he is wise, the fool who knows he is foolish is wiser than a wise man who thinks he knows it all. or words to that effect.

Kind Regards,

Elf

Edit as my general sloppy spelling and construction of BB code!

[edit on 15-9-2009 by MischeviousElf]

reply to post by Donnie Darko


Likely confirmation of the event.

It has been collapsing inward for several years at a rate of almost 500 mph.

Betelgeuse collapsing in on itself

How long before it goes Supernova may be quite awhile as it is VERY large.

Originally posted by Donnie Darko
It would create a period of "nightlessness" on Earth because the explosion would be so bright, which would definitely create some kind of consciousness shift, don't you think?

Just imagine if there wasn't a night!

Bring it on. I've got blackout curtains.

Doubt it will do much good for humanity though, other than getting rid of that stupid daylight savings time nonsense.

Actually, crops would be an issue now that I think about it. Without darkness they would be in a constant vegetative state, meaning that harvesting would be no more...uhoh.

reply to post by MischeviousElf

Let's see, our galaxy has an estimated 3 billion to 100 billion stars, maybe even more. We obviously haven't taken a full inventory. Fifty of them going supernova each year doesn't seem like very many. But the point is there are very many stars which are large enough to create a supernova. In order to produce a supernova (other than Type 1a) a star must be about about 9 times the mass of the Sun. Yes, black holes are produced by supernovas but not all supernovas create black holes.

Betelgeuse is about 20 times as massive as the Sun. VY Canis Majoris is 30-40 times the mass of the sun. But these are not even very massive compared to the big boys out there. You know how to use wiki, just go here:
en.wikipedia.org...
These are the ones we know about. Where are the rest? All over the galaxy. Too distant to get measurements, hidden behind dust clouds, on the other side of the core of the Galaxy.

Note that the list of most massive known stars only goes down to 20 solar masses. There are very, very many stars large enough to supernova but to create a black hole out of the supernova, the star needs have a minimum mass of about 20 solar masses. (As I said, Betelgeuse is at the lower limit of the mass required to produce a black hole. it is more likely that a neutron star will be produced.) The reason for this is that it is only the very core of the star which remains after the explosion. At the climax of the supernova, the majority of the material of the star is blasted into space. If the remaining core is less than about 5 solar masses a neutron star will form. If it is greater than that a black hole will form.
imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov...

I didn't talk about type 1a supernovas for several reasons; Betelgeuse is not a white dwarf, it does not have a white dwarf as a binary companion, and Type 1a supernovas do not produce black holes. The topic is the impending supernova of Betelgeuse and Betelgeuse will be a type II supernova, but since you bring it up: A Type 1a supernova does not produce a white dwarf, it is produced by a white dwarf which accretes enough matter from a binary companion to initiate a reaction which completed destroys the dwarf. Nothing is left after a type 1a.
www.pbs.org...

You're right, Betelguese could have already supernovaed as much as 640 years ago. And there is some chance it could be a black hole. Maybe an asymmetric explosion sent it moving directly toward us. But even at 1000 kms it would still be 638 light years away. Yeah, it's fast, but on a cosmic scale, an interstellar scale, 1000kms doesn't get you very far, very fast.

One last and important matter. You say that the angular momentum of the star is irrelevant to the axis of rotation of the black hole which may be produced. Can you explain that, rather than just saying it's incorrect? Please explain what happens to the momentum of 5+ solar masses? That's a pretty heavy gyroscope. What forces can cause it to be substantially changed? The "kick" you are talking about may move the core through space but I can find nothing about it changing the axis of rotation. The hypothesized asymmetry which causes the kick occurs during the explosion phase. The core obtains its rotation during the collapse phase. Is there something which occurs during this phase which can apply enough torque to disturb the axis?

[edit on 9/16/2009 by Phage]

Just forget that Hoaxland proposed it (he probably wasn't the first to propose it anyway ).

I also heard that Betelguese could also be the star Wormwood that would poison a third of the world's waters.

reply to post by Donnie Darko


Well everything that has moved in the sky from comets, meteorites, new planets found, theories on planets or stars that haven't been found yet and even distant stars (such as Sirius) has made the prophecy advocates jump out and shout "Wormwood!" for over a decade now (if not for centuries) with nothing but their wild speculation to back up their claims.

I think it is best to start with what we know and keep searching for more than trying to imagine what we don't know, convince ourselves it is fact and then apply that to the reality around us.

Right now all we do know is that Betelgeuse seems to have had a 15% decrease in size in the past 15 years which could be indicative of the star's death (bound to happen) but we do not know this for sure or what would happen because:

- Betelgeuse is known to be an unstable star and has had events similar in the past;
- Everything indicates that if a supernova was to happen the gamma-ray burst would not happen in the Earth's path;
- We still do not truly know how red giants behave in the end of their lives;
- As some articles even state some within the scientific community have theorized that the fact Betelgeuse is a disc shaped star and has an 18 year rotation period even the data we have gathered over this past 15 years (that it shrunk by 15%) could be misleading.

Hoagland feels that he knows best. Good for him

Cheers.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by MischeviousElf

 

Let's see, our galaxy has an estimated 3 billion to 100 billion stars, maybe even more. We obviously haven't taken a full inventory. Fifty of them going supernova each year doesn't seem like very many.

Oh dearey me.


No Phage a supernova event occurs about once every 50 -100 years in our galaxy, not 50 a year.

Please read the link I provided in the posts above.

One last and important matter. You say that the angular momentum of the star is irrelevant to the axis of rotation of the black hole which may be produced. Can you explain that, rather than just saying it's incorrect? Please explain what happens to the momentum of 5+ solar masses? That's a pretty heavy gyroscope. What forces can cause it to be substantially changed? The "kick" you are talking about may move the core through space but I can find nothing about it changing the axis of rotation. The hypothesized asymmetry which causes the kick occurs during the explosion phase. The core obtains its rotation during the collapse phase. Is there something which occurs during this phase which can apply enough torque to disturb the axis?

Well I think to be honest this is a question of how we internally visualise the process.

There is not a Core or solid stuff, matter that they just turns into a equal area of very heavy black hole stuff.

Obviously when the event horizon or singularity actually takes place all talk of Gyroscopic effects, normal rules of gravity etc go out of the window, as far as regarding the previous state and attributes of the behaviour, plane , direction, velocity, angles of the Core of the dying remnants of the star just before this event, and using it to causully say the area of the black hole will then act just the same once that warping of space and time itself has occurred.

There is not such a mechanical engineering flow of behaviour in these events, the cores previous spin, angles, orbit etc is based on its mass, gravity as you well know and the intereactions with other such objects in the area... however once the singularity occurs the whole rules of normal behaviour of mass and gravity break down.... so you are right the new black hole does have a rotation, planes etc but from what I understand you cannot take the previous behaviour of the core before the black hole event as the basis of the black holes behaviour in these matters once created.

It is very theoretical anyhow as Black Holes are very very strange beasts indeed, but the events to do seem to from the huge huge gravitational effects that happen once created to change the previous newtonian behaviour of the stars collapsing core.

I have no idea how this Kick happens in Asymmetry, it is one of the mysteries of supernovas, it is postulated though that maybe as we discussed some of the jets of matter/energy observed in some of the events may cause the change in direction and increased velocity. I dont think this is explaining things though sme tentative findings seem to suggest that this happens in Black holes to and they would have no such ability to create their own stream of matter/energy to push them away from their point, as it couldnt escape and even interact with the other matter/space in the area creating that force. Maybe it is right and the black hole gets the velocity from such a force created just before the singularity happens ejecting matter that way.

I have also thought about this before and I dont think this is covered in any of the literature, to me its simple in a way and we make things difficulat at times. So maybe one day this will become accepted, it make sense in my mind.

Once the singularity occurs, to make it easy to explain, like when you have a lower pressure jar in out environment compared to the air, as you know well and understand Phage nature abhors a vacuum as such and will do everything it can to balance this, open the lid of the jar and an influx of air very quickly be drawn from the surrounding environment into the jar to create the equalisation of pressure. Infact though so small it would be hard to measure if you layed the jar flat on a smooth surface and it was a jam jam type you would get some energy transfered from the influx of air molecules and atoms to the inside of the glass walls, and the highest energy transfer would be in the wall of the jar directly opposite the opening as this would the direction of highest motion/velocity of the incoming air and such like. This energy would if the jar was set up in a frictionless environment with no great gravity like the earth in our simple experiment, create a force that would infact allow some motion velocity to happen.


I believe this simple theory of mine has something to it in this regard, and as the surrounding matter pours into the area just before singularity happens as gravity becomes stronger and stronger. Allso as the singularity actually occurs of course the whole local area of space time is warped itself allowing for velocity and motion as the object continually "falls" along its path...

Anyhow just some musings.

Elf