Remember this name: Betelgeuse. In the past, man looked to the sky for answers to some fundamental questions.
With primitive technology, he was able to draw maps across the stars and in the firmament he discovered constellations, the most famous being that of Orion. Several stars have been identified in Orion, which, according to what was believed at the time, were the source of his fortune for man, explaining the celestial movements and natural phenomena foreseen.
These are bright stars hundreds of light years (one light year equals 9.5 billion kilometers) whose brightness comes much later.
With this in mind, imagine that in the past our ancestors, guided by these lights in the sky, saw that one of them began to glow more and more. Suddenly, it stayed on like the sun, but it didn't go out at night, lighting up the earth for days, if not months. This is what we could experience.
In the constellation of Orion is Betelgeuse, a variable red supergiant. It is believed to have a radius of about 1400 times greater than our Sun and is between 450 and 600 light years away. Despite her young age (8 million years) she is about to die, or maybe she is already dead and we don't know.
When a star like Betelgeuse dies, it becomes a supernova and, even if thanks to the distance, a possible disaster does not concern us much, however, it is precisely because of the distance, that we do not know if this can happen soon, in a few hundreds or thousands of years or if it's already a supernova and we're just waiting for the light to come.
Imagine that at night the sky is illuminated as if the moon shines together with another full moon, but brighter. That hours later, during the day, the light of that star continues to shine and that for months it seems that there are two suns in our solar system. This is what we might expect if we soon discover Betelgeuse's death.
The supernova of the crab
What we have just described sounds incredible. However, this wouldn't be the first time this has happened. Around the year 1054 a similar phenomenon occurred. According to texts by Chinese and Arab astronomers, the light from a supernova, better known as the crab supernova, was visible for 653 nights. The temples built by Native Americans in what is now the United States are also believed to have been completed more quickly thanks to this event.
The most surprising thing is that the light is believed to have been visible on Earth a thousand years ago, but that the explosion occurred about eight millennia earlier. Imagine what this event would mean for the whole world, today, with all the technology and stellar knowledge we possess, we know we shouldn't worry, but no doubt, there are many groups who would interpret this event as a cosmic imbalance or estrangement.
Although the space agencies have made it clear that nothing can happen, other than having light for a few weeks or months, this is an event that is really anticipated and eagerly awaited, as it would be unique, not only in our life, but for many other generations. .
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Source: w ww.labioguia.com
http://www.pianetablunews.it/2018/02/12/la-stella-betelgause-esplodera-e-illuminera-la-terra-per-due-settimane/
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