Nasa reveals stunning snap of Orion’s fiery red Betelgeuse star – but it will soon be GONE
NASA has shared a snap of one of the brightest and more unusual stars in the night sky.
Betelgeuse, the unstable red supergiant star, continues to baffle astronomers as they try and work out when it will explode.
Nasa has shared the incredible picture as part of it's Astronomy Picture of the Day series.
It's called "Behind Betelgeuse" and is intended to show us the many stars behind the supergiant, located in the Orion constellation.
Nasa explained that Betelgeuse "is actually well in front of many of the constellation's other bright stars, and also in front of the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex."
The US space agency continued: "Numerically, light takes about 700 years to reach us from Betelgeuse, but about 1,300 years to reach us from the Orion Nebula and its surrounding dust and gas.
"All but the largest telescopes see Betelgeuse as only a point of light, but a point so bright that the inherent blurriness created by the telescope and Earth's atmosphere make it seem extended.
"In the featured long-exposure image, thousands of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy can be seen in the background behind Betelgeuse, as well as dark dust from the Orion Molecular Cloud, and some red-glowing emission from hydrogen gas on the outskirts of the more distant Lambda Orionis Ring.
"Betelgeuse has recovered from appearing unusually dim over the past six months, but is still expected to explode in a spectacular supernova sometime in the next (about) 100,000 years."
Earlier this year, the debate over whether Betelgeuse will explode sooner rather than later reopened.
It had been mysteriously dimming for months and a burst of gravitational waves was detected coming from the unstable star.
This led some astronomers to think a supernova was imminent.
Nasa said: "Such variability is likely just normal behaviour for this famously variable supergiant, but the recent dimming has rekindled discussion on how long it may be before Betelgeuse does go supernova."
Betelgeuse will most likely explode thousands of years in the future.
When it does, Earth will be treated to an incredible night-sky light show as the dying star shines brighter than the full Moon.
While that may sound a little scary, the explosion will pose no danger to life on Earth, Nasa said.
What is a supernova?
Here's what you need to know...
- A supernova is a powerful and bright stellar explosion
- It occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf goes into runaway nuclear fusion
- The original object collapses into either a neutron star or black hole, or is completely destroyed
- The "peak luminosity" of a supernova is comparable to an entire galaxy, before fading over several weeks or months
- Just three naked-eye supernova events have been observed in the Milky Way during the last thousand years
- The most recent of which was Kepler's Supernova in 1604
- A supernova remnant is the structure resulting from the explosion of a star in a supernova
- It is bounded by an expanding shock wave
- And it's made from ejected material expanding from the explosion, and interstellar material it sweeps up along the way
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In other news, an incredible image of glowing Jupiter has been produced by astronomers using a "lucky imaging" technique.
A planet triple the size of Jupiter has been found lurking in a nearby solar system.
And, Nasa has a list of 22 asteroids that might hit Earth.
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