Tatooine's twin suns coming to a planet near you just as soon as Betelgeuse explodes!

[LazyLion]

http://www.news.com.au/technology/s...elgeuse-explodes/story-fn5fsgyc-1225991009247

Tatooine's twin suns - coming to a planet near you just as soon as Betelgeuse explodes!
* Betelgeuse losing mass
* Explosion will create "new sun"
* May be set for 2012 appearance

IT'S the ultimate experience for Star Wars fans - staring forlornly off into the distance as twin suns sink into the horizon.

Yet it's not just a figment of George Lucas's imagination - twin suns are real. And here's the big news - they could be coming to Earth.

Yes, any day now we see a second sun light up the sky, if only for a matter of weeks.

The infamous red super-giant star in Orion’s nebula - Betelgeuse - is predicted to go gangbusters and the impending super-nova may reach Earth before 2012, and when it does, all of our wildest Star Wars dreams will come true.

The second biggest star in the universe [sic] is losing mass, a typical indication that a gravitation collapse is occurring.

When that happens, we'll get our second sun, according to Dr Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland.

“This old star is running out of fuel in its centre”, Dr Carter said.

“This fuel keeps Betelgeuse shining and supported. When this fuel runs out the star will literally collapse in upon itself and it will do so very quickly.”

When this happens a giant explosion will occur, tens of millions of times brighter than the sun.

The bad news is, it could also happen in a million years. But who's counting?

The important thing is, one day, night will become day for several weeks on Earth.

“This is the final hurrah for the star,” says Dr Carter.

“It goes bang, it explodes, it lights up - we’ll have incredible brightness for a brief period of time for a couple of weeks and then over the coming months it begins to fade and then eventually it will be very hard to see at all.”

The interwebs is being flooded with doomsday theories saying the impending supernova confirms the Mayan calendar’s prediction of the Armageddon in 2012.

These conspiracies aren’t helped by the word “Betelgeuse” being associated with the devil.

Though it is a derivation of the Arabic phrase “yad Al Jauza” meaning the “hand of Al-Jauza” referring to a mysterious woman that controls the order of the universe, it hasn’t stopped some people from clearing out their bunkers and stocking up on tinned food.

Far from being a sign of the apocalypse, according to Dr Carter the supernova will provide Earth with elements necessary for survival and continuity.

“When a star goes bang, the first we will observe of it is a rain of tiny particles called nuetrinos,” says Dr Carter.

“They will flood through the Earth and bizarrely enough, even though the supernova we see visually will light up the night sky, 99 per cent of the energy in the supernova is released in these particles that will come through our bodies and through the Earth with absolutely no harm whatsoever.”

Stars such as the supernova produce elements that are critical to life on Earth.

Quite literally, the whole of Earth and our solar system is made of star stuff, including most of the heavy elements of the Periodic Table.

“It literally makes things like gold, silver - all the heavy elements - even things like uranium….a star like Betelgeuse is instantly forming for us all sorts of heavy elements and atoms that our own Earth and our own bodies have from long past supernovi,” Dr carter said.

Some experts have speculated Betelgeuse’s explosion may cause a neutron star or result in the formation of a black hole approximately 1300 light years from Earth, but Dr Carter says it could go either way.

“There’s a reasonably even chance of a neutron star or a black hole”, he says.

“If it were me, I’d suspect it would more likely become a black hole at 20 solar masses.”

Addendum: NEWS.com.au would like to apologise for their error - as we all know, Betelgeuse is the second biggest star in the Orion constellation, not the universe.

 

[zeyad 001]

Two suns! Awesome!!

 

[mercurial]

Awesome.

 

[Geriatrix]

2012 2012 TWENTY TWEEEEEEELTTTTTTTHHHHHHHH

 

[Sherbang]

:wtf:not again... Such Nonsense:twisted:

Yes, Betelgeuse is near the end of its life.
Yes, when it dies it will explode as a supernova.
However.....
Nobody knows when it will happen.
The chances of it going supernova in 2012 are slim (but possible).
It could happen tomorrow...
It could happen in 10 000 years...
or longer.
Where they get this 2012 date from I've no idea.
(certainly not from Dr Brad Carter)

 

[smokey]

When they said it might not happen in 2012 I was soooo bummed.

 

[johndoe1983]

Dooooooooooooom lol

 

[LazyLion]

:wtf:not again... Such Nonsense:twisted:

Yes, Betelgeuse is near the end of its life.
Yes, when it dies it will explode as a supernova.
However.....
Nobody knows when it will happen.
The chances of it going supernova in 2012 are slim (but possible).
It could happen tomorrow...
It could happen in 10 000 years...
or longer.
Where they get this 2012 date from I've no idea.
(certainly not from Dr Brad Carter)

Spoil Sport!

 

[warchylde]

:wtf:not again... Such Nonsense:twisted:

Yes, Betelgeuse is near the end of its life.
Yes, when it dies it will explode as a supernova.
However.....
Nobody knows when it will happen.
The chances of it going supernova in 2012 are slim (but possible).
It could happen tomorrow...
It could happen in 10 000 years...
or longer.
Where they get this 2012 date from I've no idea.
(certainly not from Dr Brad Carter)

But.... but..... I want my extra sun

and 2012 is not the end of the world demmit that's just tinfoil brigade - it's the borg bringing me my ship

 

[Crusader]

Much higher chance of monoliths appearing and converting Jupiter to an extra sun called Lucifer....

... Oh, wait. That's the plot for Clarke's Space Odyssey. Still MUCH higher chance of that coming true than this!

 

[comanche]

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/tech-mainmenu-30/space/6021-third-rock-from-the-suns

In the near future, in this galaxy not so far, far away … 640 light-years from Earth, in the Orion constellation, a star named Betelgeuse is on the verge of exploding and when it does it will produce a supernova that will give the appearance of their being two suns in the sky. The astronomical phenomenon is expected to produce 24 hour day light for as long as a couple of weeks, sometime in 2011 , 2012, or in the next million years. Such are the predictions of Dr. Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland, in Australia. Dr. Carter elaborated his predictions in an interview with news.com.au.
Betelgeuse “is running out of fuel in its centre,” adding on that it’s “fuel keeps Betelgeuse shining and supported. When this fuel runs out the star will literally collapse in upon itself and it will do so very quickly.”

“When this happens a giant explosion will occur,” Carter explained, “tens of millions of times brighter than the sun. The bad news is, it could also happen in a million years. But who's counting? The important thing is, one day, night will become day for several weeks on Earth.”

In addition to constant day light, Betelgeuse’s explosion will send a shower of harmless neutrino particles raining on Earth.

Dr. Carter’s predictions have traveled across the Internet at warp speed with many claiming that the scenario’s 2011 or 2012 is a fact, however he himself stated that they might not happen for another million years and other scientist are inclined to believe the latter.

Dr. Philip R. Goode, professor of physics at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, told Fox News: “Betelgeuse is a red supergiant and should supernova at some time. When? Who knows?”

Dr. Goode suggests that due to the unpredictability of supernovas one cannot pinpoint a time a date for the occurrence of such a phenomenon.

If and when the events transpire, as predicted by Carter, one will not have to go to a galaxy far, far away to observe the binary sunset of Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatuin, as depicted in the hit science fiction movie Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977).

Just some continuous sunlight for a couple weeks. All it means is that the glittery vampires can't have any blood for a while, that's all. It would be awesome to see though.

 

[wrathex]

I love the Orion constellation, Betelgeuse is easily identifiable with the naked eye, it is the star that glows reddish diagonally opposite Rigel, which is the brightest.

This is the map of the constellation as I drew it from naked eye viewing in early January.
Looking North from Cape Town.