>Gemini North telescope in Hawai‘i reveals never-before-seen companion to Betelgeuse, solving millennia-old mystery
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/type-ia-supernova/
The larger star explodes first in a Type II supernova, becomes a Type Ia.
I'm not saying Betelgeuse would be a type Ia. Betelgeuse will be a Type II supernova.
I'm wondering whether Type II supernovae with smaller partners later become Type Ia once the larger partner explodes and becomes a white dwarf. The former smaller partner then becomes the relatively larger partner that loses mass to the remnant.
>This discovery provides a clearer picture of this red supergiant’s life and future death. Betelgeuse and its companion star were likely born at the same time. However, the companion star will have a shortened lifespan as strong tidal forces will cause it to spiral into Betelgeuse and meet its demise, which scientists estimate will occur within the next 10,000 years.
It's unfortunate our flesh lasts but a blink of cosmic time. That would be something to witness.
My preferred solution to the Fermi paradox is that hundred million year long lifespans become trivial relatively soon at which point sublight speed galactic travel becomes no big deal and the differing time scale means that not being contacted by an alien intelligence simply hasn't happened yet, have you tried to establish communication with an ant hill in the last 10 seconds? Everybody else in the galaxy who could talk to us lives so long that they just haven't tried to say hello in the last 10,000 years because they were out to lunch.
edit: apparently, yep, that's why.
And from the original NOIRLab link: “This discovery answers the longstanding mystery of the star’s varying brightness”.
On the other hand, if the merger happens after the star has started burning carbon, it would have no effect. The explosions and collapses occurring in a supergiant are driven by successive phases of nuclear fusion in the core (collapse when one kind of fuel is exhausted, explosion as the previous fusion products become fusion ingredients), and they happen on a very short timescale (starting at thousands of years and ending at days before the star goes supernova). The presence of lighter elements billions of km away would not really have any impact on that.
The detection appears to be statistically very marginal, 1.5sigma, and the image contains a very similar bright spot on the opposite side of the star (which, for some reason, does not warrant a detection claim).
layer8•12h ago