This orange blob shows the nearby star Betelgeuse, as seen by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). This is the first time that ALMA has ever observed the surface of a star and this first attempt has resulted in the highest-resolution image of Betelgeuse available.
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Pretty good.
I like Betelgeuse. One of my favourite stars, often very handy for celestial navigation. Conveniently on the opposite side of the sky from that other good ol’ red giant, Antares.
Going to be impressive when that one blows.
Bubblecar said:
Going to be impressive when that one blows.
Yeah, thankfully it’s polar axis is tilted away from us so we won’t get hit by the gamma ray bursts, which would potentially fuck over all life on Earth. it will just be a big shinny star brighter than the moon at night and visible during the day for some months, changing colour, and then slowly fading away to nothing.
party_pants said:
Bubblecar said:
Going to be impressive when that one blows.
Yeah, thankfully it’s polar axis is tilted away from us so we won’t get hit by the gamma ray bursts, which would potentially fuck over all life on Earth. it will just be a big shinny star brighter than the moon at night and visible during the day for some months, changing colour, and then slowly fading away to nothing.
Thanks. I hadn’t thought to that.
Wouldn’t Betelgeuse go Wolf-Rayet + Planetary Nebula before it goes supernova? A little bang before the big one.
The planetary nebula created ought to be impressive in itself.
This is the new view from ALMA (very high frequency microwaves)
This is the view from the VLT (very large telescope) in optical
This is the VLT view in IR.
