Rigel: So, did you hear about Betelgeuse?
Vega: Oh my, yes! It’s all over the galaxy.
Algol: What is?
Vega: You haven’t heard?
Rigel (rolling eyes in derision and disbelief): Where in the Milky Way have you been? Everyone’s talking about it. I heard Bellatrix telling Arcturas that Canopus said that Alnitak said …
Algol: Enough already! OK, OK, OK. So, I don’t know what you are talking about. I get it. I’m uncool.
Vega: Puh-lease. You? The triplet “Demon Star” not cool. Oh, you are definitely cool. But, in the know? No.
Algol: Then tell me! What’s up with Betelgeuse.
Rigel: Fading.
Algol: Fading? You mean varying in intensity, ‘cause that’s what I do.
Rigel: You do it because of your three-star makeup. You look different at a distance from time to time because your individual members are swapping places at the front of the stage, Darling!
Algol: Well, Juicy’s a variable star, too.
Vega: Juicy?
Algol: It’s what I call Betelgeuse. We go way back.
Rigel: Uh, OK. So right, “Juicy” is a variable star, but we think something’s up.
Algol: Like what?
Vega: Well, you know about the weight thing, right?
Algol: Come on! You know Juicy’s a red supergiant. Big-boned.
Vega: It leads to issues.
Algol: Issues?
Rigel: Issues.
Vega: Yeah, so when a big old fatty like Betelgeuse …
Algol: Hey! I won’t sit here and let you insult my friends!
Vega: Sorry. So, when a star of Betelgeuse’s, ahem, stature starts to fade, it might mean the end.
Algol: No!
Vega and Rigel together: Yes!

What exactly is happening to Betelgeuse? Astronomers are not completely sure, but it could be that the eleventh brightest star in our sky is headed for supernova - an explosion that would be so massive it would be visible during the daytime for months and fill the night sky with a light that would rival a full moon.

Will this happen?
When?
Should you run outside now and check?

There are no clear answers to any of those questions. Betelgeuse is a variable star. Its brightness ebbs and flows naturally. Scientists are all in a tizzy mainly because this is a pretty large, sustained shift. It still might be nothing, but then again …

Will it happen? Most likely. Betelgeuse is classified as a red supergiant star. It is, brace yourself, a thousand times larger than our own sun. Yeah, it’s huge. There’s a lot of mass in a star like that, and stars like Betelgeuse tend to go out with a flourish - a supernova.

When will it happen? Actually, it could happen any day now–or maybe in half a million years, give our take. The safe money is betting on about 100,000 years, but it could happen tomorrow. Actually, it could have already happened as far back as the fourteenth century. Betelgeuse is about 700 light-years from us. Anything we see going on there actually happened in about the year 1320. Edward II was still King of England, not yet murdered in the most heinous way possible - but I digress. I’ll leave you to your Googling later for that profoundly disturbing story.

Should you run outside now and check on our stellar friend, the shoulder of Orion? Probably not. The odds of this fireworks show happening in our lifetime are pretty slim, even if Juicy is on the way out.

This article was written by Tilmer Wright, Jr. Tilmer is an IT professional with over thirty years of experience wrestling with technology and a proud member of the Authors Guild of Tennessee. In his spare time, he writes books.

You can find links to Tilmer’s books at the following location: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3ATilmer+Wright+Jr&s=rele…

His author information web site is here: http://www.tilmerwrightjr.com/

Illustration of Betelgeuse by ESO/L. Calçada
Used under the Creative Commons licence: ESO/L. Calçada [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)]