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Betelgeuse, our second Sun in 2012?

star Betelgeuse is one of the most famous and well known even outside the scientific community, both for its size and its brightness in the firmament. And in 2012, according to the Australian physicist says Brad Carter, this star will explode in a brilliant supernova that will be razor sharp to the naked eye. The hypothesis put forward by the scientist at the University of Queensland has been disclosed by the Daily Telegraph, a prestigious newspaper Anglo-Saxon.

Betelgeuse is a red supergiant of spectral class M1-Morgan-Keenan 2Iab. The red supergiant stars are stars whose evolution is well advanced, and are characterized by a situation somewhat restless and - a chemical and physical - very unstable. The stages of protostar and star has already passed, and it seems a loud, vehement and brilliant explosion: a supernova of type II. In this explosion, the star will lose almost 85% of its mass and it will evolve into a neutron star.

Betelgeuse is one of the stars that can be more easily discerned in the night sky for its brightness (apparent magnitude average is - 0.58, with a Vega - 0.00 and the Sun - 26.8) that for its unusual color (bright red or orange, depending on atmospheric factors and the observation point). E 'located in the constellation Orion, the hunter, and is the star in the upper left nell'asterismo hourglass, just above the famous belt of Orion. It 'also one of the three stars that make up the Winter Triangle.

A simulation of how it would appear after the explosion of Orion Betelgeuse

Piero Benvenuti, professor of astrophysics at the University of Padua and President National Institute of Astrophysics until 2007, says: "it explodes as a supernova is sure, but I know when it will happen is nonsense. " In fact, stellar evolution is always talking about billions of years, but in reality every star explodes when he wants at this time. Apart from that, I personally I would like to make a clarification for those who are not experts in astronomy: the light from Betelgeuse has traveled for 640 years before us, and if today we saw the explosion in fact what would have happened 640 years ago.

"The event would be visible even in daylight, but it would be very difficult to define as a" second sun "» read Welcome.

We will be inundated with hundreds of photons with wavelengths discrepant as infrared rays, X rays, ultraviolet rays and so on, but that will be absorbed by the atmosphere that envelops us. Betelgeuse will eject a mass of neutrinos and also all the chemical elements that have remained, but not join us because they are less rapid in the light. Among these particles do not have to include helium and hydrogen, the main fuel of the star, which will already be finished and that is why there will be a supernova.

that Carter wanted to encourage and stir up anxiety about the prophecies concerning in 2012 we do not know, but it is very likely that nothing will happen. Anyway, the explosion of Betelgeuse would not cause damage either to the human race or our planet. We can therefore rest assured.