I've been waiting all week to send the 2,000th post on this thread.
Damn you AEnima, and you fast fingers!






Mind you, 2001 on a space thread......that'll do.

It may well have been Mars you were looking at.
Around 8pm-9pm, Mars is rising from the east/southeast - at the same time, Betelgeuse is mid-height, due-South.
Mars is currently significantly brighter than betelgeuse, and a more intense orange.

Yes, I'm pretty sure it was. It was quite orange. Stars don't usually look that orange I don't think. Saw a very orange star once though, think it was Aldebaran (sp)

Haha, sorry. Yes, 2001 is even better though

Although Betelgeuse (how do you pronounce it? I prefer the 'film' version) can go at any time, I'm pretty sure IIRC we'll get fair warning. It's already pretty variable but before it goes supernova it should enter an intense period of variability by which time every astronomical instrument on the planet (or off) will be trained onto the star. I think the chances of it going nova in our lifetime are pretty slim, though.

Yes Mars is very bright just now. I saw it a few nights ago and was amazed at how big and bright it looked.

Maybe far better. You can always look forward to 3,000

or maybe 2012.

I think it is pronounced like the film.

It has been losing considerable mass for some time. I think it has started to rapidly shrink in size now, signs of instability that they think precede a supernova.

I suppose based on that, there's never been better odds that it'll go supernova.

Do we know at what stage the star is in it's final phases, though? I'm working solely form memory of my degree 15 years ago but dying stars of this mass go through several oscillations as they contract, heat up, resume fusion burning of increasingly heavy elements and expand again until finally there's nothing left in the core to counter-act gravity and the core collapses, sparking the super-nova. This process could take thousands or tens of thousands of years.

Either Mars or Arcturus I'd say....more likely to be Mars at that time of night

Betelgeuse is usually pronounced 'Bet-el-geez', well that's how my tutors pronounce it! I don't think there's any defined way of saying it.....it's a random name. They can't say with certainity at the moment where it is phase wise as it's mass hasn't be accurately determined, okay so we know it's dying but not the crucial mass data to refine models and predictions of when it'll go. Not that we'd notice it anyway!! It's approx 650 ly away give or take a 100 ly either side! It might of died a hundred years ago for all we know..

Nice work there Assa2. You caught the Earthshine very nicely.

Can you imagine if it happens in the middle of June when Betelgeuse is behind the Sun so we don't see it after all?

On the other hand, as Patrick Moore keeps saying, we are very overdue for a supernova in our own galaxy, so when it does go it might be in October or something to make proper amends. And on a nice clear night for the UK please.

I wonder what the timescale would be of a major event like this. Although after it blows it'll be visible for months or years, will the actual explosion itself take a few minutes, hours or days to build up?

Oh, and then Orion will need a prosthetic arm fitted, if he survives at all.

He probably remembers seeing the last one.

Interesting point. Even if the Sun obscured Betelgeuse when it went supernova I have a feeling we'd still pick it up, maybe not from visible light but from other wavelengths and from Neutrino detection although again I'm not sure how quickly the neutrinos would arrive.

As for how quickly the nova happens - pretty much instantaneously I think. The initial implosion / explosion takes milli-seconds with the core collapsing at an appreciable fraction of light-speed. The nova reaches maximum luminosity immediately then slowly dims over potentially years. Betelgeuse would certainly be visible in broad daylight for a while.

When Betelgeuse goes bang the sun cream manufacturers should use it as a sales pitch...

"Ambre Solaire for daytime and night time use "


Doesn't mean to say it will go bang this year or for a few years yet, does it ??
http://news.discovery.com/space/dont...e-in-2012.html

The short answer is that nobody really knows, but it could happen today or a million years hence.

Meteor witnessed across Britain



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-17248959

I didn't see last nights Meteor, but have been lucky enough to see a couple in the past. In 2006 I was locking my front door at about 6:30am when the whole of the front of the house suddenly lit up, I though it was just a cars headlights but when I turned around there was a massive fireball high in the still dark sky in the distance, I wastched it for about 15 seconds then it suddenly exploded, seding red hot embers flying in all directions, finally watched as the glowing particles slowing decended to earth dissappearing as they cooled. There were a few reports of it on the local radio and newspapers.

I had a look on the SPA forum and they are asking for reports.

See this link.

The neutrinos should arrive shortly before the light - not because they are travelling faster, but because they are travelling at almost the speed of light and are created the instant the core collapses, whereas the light generation has to wait for the shock wave to propagate to the outer surface of the star. This could take a few hours.

Orbit: Earth 's Extraordinary Journey. New series 1/3

BBC 2 @ 9pm ie 18 minutes from now.

The beautiful sky
Meteor at fifty three
Movement by time lapse.

http://vimeo.com/36684976

Saw four planets in the sky with the naked eye for the first time tonight Took my 10 year old daughter for a walk to where we could see the horizon and around 6:45, with the aid of Google Sky on my S2, I found Mercury for the first time. Fortunately it was conveniently in an almost straight line through Jupiter and Venus and much higher from the horizon than I expected. Then when I turned around to walk home there was Mars. Quite a sight

Saw Mars tonight walking home from the station. isn't it bright!

Well done it is hard to get Mercury on the list of planets seen.

It will probably be around for a few days now.

I'm surprised they let it on the train!