Betelguese

Betelgeuse, as seen by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1726a/

They took a surface picture of Betelguese, only just, a couple of hours ago!

Betelgeuse is close, only about 600 light-years away in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the largest stars known, a red super-giant with a radius around 1400 times larger than the Sun’s. It’s also pretty young, just about eight million years old, and it won’t last much longer, heading for a supernova pretty soon.

When that happens, the resulting explosion will be visible from Earth, even in broad daylight. I hope I’m around long enough to see it, but then again “short” for stars and “long” for humans rarely overlap. Though they must, sometimes.

What a world to be alive in!

 

 

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