Betelgeuse and the death of stars.

by 
   Spoorthi. S



Betelgeuse is a beautiful star in the constellation of Orion, around 650 light years from us. You can easily locate it on the right shoulder of Orion. Betelgeuse is a red super giant. That would mean that it is massive! Huge stars tend to have short life spans. Before getting into Betelgeuse any further, lets take a look at the death of a star. Previously, we had seen how a star forms. You might remember the concept of thermal equilibrium in a star. A star, as one might describe, is just a huge nuclear furnace with nuclear fusion going on in its core. This process generates a lot of energy. To balance that, we have the star’s own gravity. These two forces help a star to be considerably stable. This is the thermal equilibrium of a star. Average sized stars, like our Sun, at the end of their lifetime, would swell up in size to a red giant and later shed off its outer layers to form a planetary nebula (a true treat for the eyes) with a white dwarf at its center.

  It’s a lot different for stars that are much massive than the Sun.  Stars, like Betelgeuse, when about to die, die in the most spectacular and deadly way. A supernova.  A supernova is an explosion produced by a dying star which releases a whole lot of energy. A supernova may give rise to a black hole or a neutron star. Coming back to Betelgeuse, this red supergiant is in its last stages of its life. Its expected to go supernova in a few hundred centuries. Well…all stars like Betelgeuse go supernova one day…but wait, what? During late 2019 and early 2020, Betelgeuse gave a bit of a surprise to people down here. No it didn’t go supernova, but it did dim. Yeah. There was a noticeable change in its brightness level .This caused a lot of people to suggest that it might go supernova. Back in February, it began to brighten up. Later in August, the ‘mystery’ of Betelgeuse’s dimming was solved. There was apparently, a dust cloud that had blocked Betelgeuse’s southern side. The star had ejected a cloud of hot gas which would later block a part of it from us. Last month, there was again a dimming . Anyway, Betelgeuse continues to be one of the most amazing stars even when it is in its deathbed. 

Thank You!

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