So while it is much larger than our Sun
Size Temperature of Betelgeuse
The first thing that jumps out at you about Betelgeuse is how enormous it is; pulling in at around 15 times the mass of the Sun and 650 times its diameter. If you were to superimpose Betelgeuse into out own solar system, the star’s edge would be somewhere near Jupiter, canada canada goose goose outlet reviews engulfing all of the inner planets. Betelgeuse also gives off nearly 50,000 times more light than the Sun. Combined with the fact official canada goose outlet that it is only 640 light years away from the Earth, this means that Betelgeuse is one of the canada goose clearance sale brightest stars in the sky. In fact, there are only 8 other stars that appear brighter than Betelgeuse.
In terms of the galaxy, Betelgeuse is a youngster at only around 10 million years. It is canada goose outlet black friday a red supergiant, meaning that during its time on the main sequence, it was one of the biggest stars in the canada goose outlet galaxy. The peculiar thing about huge stars is that they are extremely short lived. The huge amount of pressure that gravity is putting on the core of the star means that Betelgeuse burns through its canada goose outlet uk sale fuel much faster than other stars. So while it is much larger than our Sun, its lifetime will be orders of magnitude smaller. Our Sun will last another 6 canada goose uk shop billion years, and Betelgeuse will be lucky to last another 100,000.
Betelgeuse started its life like any other star. The enormous pressure due to gravity caused its core to get so hot that hydrogen spontaneously fused with itself to create helium and energy. As helium started to accumulate at its core, unable to fuse, the star’s energy output began to go down. Without the explosive force of fusion at its core, gravity once again started canada goose jacket outlet to make canada goose factory outlet it contract.
At some point, Betelgeuse contracted so much that its core got hot enough to fuse helium into carbon. When this happened, the core all started fusing at roughly the same time, https://www.estrategias.de creating an enormous explosion called a helium flash that is about 100 billion times the usual energy output of the star. It is at this time that Betelgeuse left the canada goose outlet uk main sequence, with the enormous energy being produced at its core causing it to balloon up to hundreds of times its normal size. It was now a red supergiant. This is the state we find Betelgeuse in today. Its core has started to collect other canada goose outlet canada elements: oxygen, neon and silicon, and will produce elements all the way up Canada Goose Jackets to iron.
The peculiar thing about iron for astronomers lies in its nuclear binding energy, canada goose outlet online or the energy that is physically holding the atom
together. To fuse an iron atom with something else actually requires more energy than it produces. This means that huge stars end up accumulating iron in their cores, up until their iron cores reach about 1.4 solar masses. When the core gets that massive, the strength of gravity overcomes uk canada goose outlet the forces that hold electrons apart from an atom’s nucleus. In a violent collapse, electrons combine with protons in the core to form neutrons. What is cheap canada goose uk left is a 20 mile wide ball of neutrons sitting where the core used to be. The outer canada goose outlet sale layers of the star begin falling towards the center, accelerating up to a fourth of the speed of light. buy canada goose jacket When the outer layers of the star collide with the neutron star, that enormous kinetic energy gets reflected outwards creating a Type II supernova. For days or even weeks, Betelgeuse would become thousands canada goose coats of times brighter, rivaling the full Moon in the sky. It would be visible during the day and cast shadows at cheap canada goose night. This is the precipice that Betelgeuse is dangling over. For the past 20 years it has cheap canada goose been contracting at 700 miles per hour, as its core gets bigger and bigger. Be ready for the day that Orion blows out his rotator cuff.