re: #29 Anymouse 🌹🏡😷

Betelgeuse is a three-year old. /s

Here’s a thought experiment. Betelgeuse is said to be a point in its stellar evolution where it will become a supernova in the next 100,000 years. Betelgeuse is also believed to be 10 million years old. In other words, Betelgeuse has passed through 99 percent of its lifetime.

I wish a closely-observed and relatively nearby star would go supernova. You know, like Betelgeuse. It’s weird to imagine that the star just went along fusing hydrogen into helium for over eight million years, then ran out and moved to fusing helium for a million years (and expanding because of the higher temps from fusing helium) to carbon for 1,000 years, neon for three years, oxygen for four months and then silicon for *five days* before the whole shebang falls apart because once the silicon that fuses into nickel and then deteriorates into iron, there’s no more fusing going on. The hydrostatic equilibrium of the star ends and the core collapses, then rebounds.

This is the one thing I want to see in my lifetime, a naked-eye supernova. Yeah, I knew about SN1987A, and my boyfriend and I seriously talked about maybe driving down to southern Mexico to get a glimpse (of what was a very ordinary looking star). But I was in law school and that was not possible. I’d really like a naked-eye, in this galaxy supernova. But one with no gamma rays or anything else otherwise civilization ending. Please.