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[Sowelu]

You know what I think is absolutely fascinating?

This might happen sometime in the next million years.  Think about how many times it has happened in the last oh...three, four hundred million years.

Bright light day and night for a couple weeks.  It's happened before, while life was still around.  Not intelligent life--well, maybe it caught some early early humans--but at least as smart as other animals today.

I wonder what the dinosaurs thought when it happened to them, probably more than once.

[de5me7]

However, with distance estimates in the last century that have ranged anywhere from 180 to 1,300 light years from Earth, calculating its diameter, luminosity and mass have proven difficult. Betelgeuse is currently thought to lie around 640 light years away...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse
The temporal language of that article bugs me.  If Beletegeuse blew up, then it blew up quite some time ago and referring to it in the future tense makes me wince.
/english_nazi

perhaps time is relative.


we experience intersteller time, as light reaches us

[Urist Imiknorris]

You know what I think is absolutely fascinating?

This might happen sometime in the next million years.  Think about how many times it has happened in the last oh...three, four hundred million years.

Bright light day and night for a couple weeks.  It's happened before, while life was still around.  Not intelligent life--well, maybe it caught some early early humans--but at least as smart as other animals today.

I wonder what the dinosaurs thought when it happened to them, probably more than once.

I think it happened around 1000 AD, actually.

[Karlito]

Bright light day and night for a couple weeks.  It's happened before, while life was still around.  Not intelligent life--well, maybe it caught some early early humans--but at least as smart as other animals today.

Actual scientist says, "Probably won't be quite that bright".

But yeah, it would still be pretty cool, if it happened during my lifetime.

[Megaman]

I'm not affected by the news article, news always make it sound several times worse or better.

[Lord Shonus]

You know what I think is absolutely fascinating?

This might happen sometime in the next million years.  Think about how many times it has happened in the last oh...three, four hundred million years.

Bright light day and night for a couple weeks.  It's happened before, while life was still around.  Not intelligent life--well, maybe it caught some early early humans--but at least as smart as other animals today.

I wonder what the dinosaurs thought when it happened to them, probably more than once.

I think it happened around 1000 AD, actually.

IIRC, there's a theory that such an event happened around 1 AD, which we know as the Star of Bethlehem.

[Sowelu]

Those events probably weren't "bright as day for a couple weeks", though.

[AntiAntiMatter]

Those events probably weren't "bright as day for a couple weeks", though.

But they would fit in nicely with the stuff in the article Karlito posted.

[Soadreqm]

Only a million-year error margin? They must be serious about this star going boom any second now. Yeah, it'd be awesome to have something like this happen in my lifetime. I bet the Mayans never saw a star this big explode this close. And even if they had, they wouldn't have know what it was! Hah! Stupid Mayans.

[Aklyon]

By the time we see it, we'll already be a million years(or less) after it due to the weird temporal stuff in space.

[Soadreqm]

By the time we see it, we'll already be a million years(or less) after it due to the weird temporal stuff in space.

Betelgeuse is about six hundred light years away. We will see its explosion about six hundred years after the fact. There isn't THAT much weird temporal stuff in space.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Here's hoping that we see this before we're part of the fossil record. Preferably in December 2012 so we can watch the world not end and enjoy a few days where it's not dark at 3 in the afternoon.

[Muz]

However, with distance estimates in the last century that have ranged anywhere from 180 to 1,300 light years from Earth, calculating its diameter, luminosity and mass have proven difficult. Betelgeuse is currently thought to lie around 640 light years away...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse
The temporal language of that article bugs me.  If Beletegeuse blew up, then it blew up quite some time ago and referring to it in the future tense makes me wince.
/english_nazi

If it blew up a while ago, but we only know whether or not it did in the future, what tense is that?

[Grakelin]

Maybe revise the theory so that it is the end of the world for vampires.

[Virex]

However, with distance estimates in the last century that have ranged anywhere from 180 to 1,300 light years from Earth, calculating its diameter, luminosity and mass have proven difficult. Betelgeuse is currently thought to lie around 640 light years away...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse
The temporal language of that article bugs me.  If Beletegeuse blew up, then it blew up quite some time ago and referring to it in the future tense makes me wince.
/english_nazi

If it blew up a while ago, but we only know whether or not it did in the future, what tense is that?

Doesn't matter, astronomers measure the time of an event from the moment they observe it, because for most events they don't even know how far it happened. It's easier to talk about the June 1986 gamma ray then to talk about the 503 million BC give-or-take 20 million gamma ray.