Lead
At a distance of only 640 light-years from Earth, there is a star with a luminosity equivalent to more than 400,000 times that of the Sun, and this star is named Betelgeuse, a red supergiant, but Betelgeuse has reached the end of its life, and it is known that a star will burst into a supernova at the end of its life, and the energy it contains will bring unimaginable destruction.
Astronomers have found that Betelgeuse's shell is gradually falling off at an accelerated rate, and it also has extremely unstable luminosity, which means that it could erupt at any time, and the eruption could bring great disaster to Earth.
Astronomers believe that Betelgeuse has already erupted in 2019, but the closest distance to us is 640 light years, and the speed of light is 299792 kilometers per second, so the time it took to reach the Earth is about 640 light years * 9.461 trillion km / light years / second × 31,556,926 second years ≈ 2 million years.
In other words, what we see as Betelgeuse is actually 2 million years old, so what happened to it?
1. The beginning and end of Betelgeuse.
Betelgeuse was born 130 million years ago, 2,300 years before its birth, the ancient Egyptians had recorded it, in the eyes of modern people, Betelgeuse is the β star of Orion, but the ancients called it "Sirius".
It is even considered a bad omen in various astrological studies, and it is accompanied by a star α Centauri, which the ancient Egyptians used to identify the southern position 40,000 years ago, but the birth of a new star in the sky often brings many legends.
As the name suggests, Betelgeuse is the star of the south, but there is also the constellation Orion in the south in the sky, so Orion was also regarded as an ominous existence by the ancients, and it is said to be in the form of a fierce beast in the southern wilderness.
But the location of Orion is also often used to identify directions, and Orion is also one of the twelve zodiac signs, so Orion also has its own mythology.
The most famous of these is the Greek myth of Orion Orion, who is a descendant of gods and men, and based on this myth, Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion is also believed to have certain ferocious qualities.
Later, in the time of the ancient Greeks, β Orion and α Centauri also appeared in the Odyssey, which is a theme of Greek mythology, which also attracted the attention of the Greeks to Orion.
By the first century AD, in the study of the Greeks, they believed that α Centauri was the predecessor of the North Star.
In the Middle Ages, β Orion was classified as a first-magnitude star, and Orion was used to record ephemeris and became an important symbol in many star charts spanning 2,000 years, including the Islamic Star House, India, Jordanian Iluk, Medieval Europe, and Ming Dynasty China.
However, in modern times, Betelgeuse has also become the focus of people's research, and people have found that the brightness of Betelgeuse has also changed brightly and darkly, but everyone thinks that this is the characteristic of Betelgeuse itself, and they do not care too much.
However, in 2019, astronomers observed Betelgeuse and found that Betelgeuse's shell was falling at an accelerated rate, which also indicated that Betelgeuse had reached the end of its life, and such a powerful star was destined to go to its end.
At the same time, astronomers also made observations of Betelgeuse's brightness, and it found that Betelgeuse's brightness was very unstable, with huge fluctuations in brightness in a short period of time, indicating that its eruption had become more unstable.
2. The explosion of Betelgeuse.
The supernova produced after the explosion is the most powerful explosion in the universe, releasing energy equivalent to the total energy of the sun in 5 billion years, which can be compared to the energy released by an asteroid hitting the Earth and the energy released by a nuclear bomb explosion.
Based on Betelgeuse's findings, astronomers believe that in its current state, although it has not changed much, if it explodes, it will make the night look like day, and even bring us into the polar day, and the polar day will not appear for a month, but for a week.
Many people may think that we are 640 light-years away from Betelgeuse, and that it would take 2 million years for the light it emits to travel to Earth at the speed of light, so we can have 2 million years to deal with it even if we see Betelgeuse change.
But in reality this is not the case, the sun is just one type of star, not all stars are different, they are classified according to their mass and age.
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant, but it has very different properties than red dwarfs and red giants, and our Sun is a main-sequence star, so the process of this stellar explosion will be completely different.
At the time of the eruption of Betelgeuse, a very large amount of high-energy radiation will be released, which will be called gamma rays, and it will fill every corner of the solar system, and if we are in it, it will pose a huge threat to our DNA, and it will greatly affect planes and satellites until they are farther away from the Earth, which will also cause us to not be able to receive signals from space probes.
After the eruption, Betelgeuse will release a huge radius that will affect every planet in the solar system, such as being burned, corroded, and frozen, however, the radius of Betelgeuse's explosion will be much larger than these ranges.
Therefore, astronomers simulated Betelgeuse and found that Betelgeuse will release a stream of high-energy radiation after the explosion, which will have an impact on all the planets in the solar system, and the impact on the earth will have very serious consequences, and may even cause volcanic eruptions and earthquakes on the earth.
Of course, we haven't found any major anomalies in Betelgeuse's location right now, but we can't rule out the possibility of it exploding, it's still 640 light-years away, and one of the drawbacks of being able to perceive the speed of light is that we can't sense it in advance.
3. How to carry out early warning.
Betelgeuse is a hyperspectral type of star, and its explosion produces an extreme wave of supernovae, which will have serious consequences, however, it also means that there is a high probability that it will make us notice it before it explodes.
The high-energy radiation released after its explosion has a great impact on the space probe, which gives us time to calm down.
When Betelgeuse explodes, it will release a large amount of energy and matter, which will travel at a speed of 5,000-8,000 km/s, which is not very far at the speed of light and can be far away from the influence of the Earth.
There are many reasons why Betelgeuse was known before it exploded, for example, the Pioneer 10 and Voyager spacecraft discovered some atomic particles related to Betelgeuse during their voyage.
The high-energy radiation released after Betelgeuse's explosion will have a very large impact on living things, but if it can give us a year or more in advance, we will be able to deal with it.
The explosion of Betelgeuse will have a long-term impact on the ecological environment and climate on the earth, and the creatures on the earth will not be able to adapt to this environment, and the civilization on the earth will also be greatly affected.
If this happens, what should we do?
Nowadays, the level of human technology is very high, if the explosion of Betelgeuse can bring a certain amount of time, we can resist through technical means, but its explosion is not stable, we can only use other ways to warn of possible events.
In the observation of the sky, we also have an observation side, that is, through the observation of objects with greater radiation intensity, when observing these objects, we often find some anomalies, such as their nearby interstellar clouds becoming more unstable, which will also have an impact on the surrounding stars.
The presence of gas around them has shown that they are likely to produce supernovae, but they are all very far away from us, so we can only predict these supernovae by looking at the anomalies of the stars around them.
epilogue
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant, and it will also give us some research opportunities after its explosion, which will also help us better understand the universe and stars, and also discover the unknown in the universe.
In the face of this inevitable natural disaster, how can we work together to reduce its impact?