The famous star Betelgeuse is smaller and closer than we thought

If you experience a creepy feeling of someone breathing around your neck, it may be petechiae. Infamous star – a wonderful subject This is the supernova debate Earlier this year – it may be closer to Earth than we suspected.

Betelgeuse is a red supergiant and it is terrible compared to the size of our sun. A The study was published in The Astrophysical Journal This week releases some new calculations of the mass and distance of the star, and it gives us an estimate of the probability of a supernova going up.

As the star went through some odd dim and bright episodes starting in late 2019, speculation surrounding the Petalgeus eruption was kicked into high gear. Scientists believe One of these events was caused by a cloud of dust. “We found that the second small event may be due to the star’s pulse,” he said Leading author Meredith Joyce, in a report from the Australian National University (ANU) Friday.

The scientific team used modeling to sort out what was going on with the pulses, discovering what co-author Shing-si Leung of the University of Tokyo described as “pressure waves – basically, sound waves”. This function helped researchers find out where the star is in its life cycle.

The result is that Betelgeuse is not in danger of going supernova at any time. It could easily take 100,000 years to get to that point. This In line with what other scientists have suggested.

This study also shook our knowledge of star size. “Petalgeus’ true body size was a mystery – previous studies have suggested that it may be larger than Jupiter’s orbit. Co-author Laszlo Molner said Of the Congolese Laboratory in Budapest.

Because the size of Petalgeus was better dialed, the team was able to more accurately calculate its distance from Earth, keeping it about 530 light-years away, or 25% closer than previously known. This is more than enough to ensure that the future eruption of Petalgeus will have no effect on Earth.

“It’s even bigger when a supernova comes out. It’s our closest candidate. It gives us a rare opportunity to study what happens to stars like this before it explodes,” Joyce said.