this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2025
123 points (94.2% liked)

Space

8759 readers
1 users here now

News and findings about our cosmos.

Subcommunity of Science

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
wintrparkgrl@beehaw.org
Gaywallet@beehaw.org
alyaza@beehaw.org
remington@beehaw.org
123
A closeup look of Betelgeuse a red supergiant 650 light years away from Earth (i.redd.it)
submitted 2 months ago by ooli3@sopuli.xyz to c/space@beehaw.org
15 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
top 15 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Twanquility@feddit.dk 26 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Except that it's wrong. Space is cool, and Betelgeuse is impressive, but that isn't how it looks.

The star is out of focus, and the movement is due to the earths atmosphere. I could get that visual with my phone and a handheld binocular.

Any image of a star (except for our own sun), which is more than just a point of light, is a faulty representation. It's misleading. Share cool stuff, but let's not say things that we don't know to be true.

Actually i just said something that i assumed to be true, but wasn't

""Any image of a star (except for our own sun), which is more than just a point of light, is a faulty representation.""

Turns out we do have 'higher' resolution pictures of stars, thanks to raoul. I'm sorry. mistakes were made. I'll go on my lunchbreak now and think about what I've done.

[–] raoul@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Any image of a star (except for our own sun), which is more than just a point of light, is a faulty representation. It's misleading. Share cool stuff, but let's not say things

That's not true. We have higher resolution that a pixel.

[–] Twanquility@feddit.dk 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You got me! I did not know we had that. Thanks. Which one is that?

(I guess we also have the images of the light surrounding black hole in the center of our galaxy, which is also quite far away, and has quite som pixels. Although it is also larger than a typical star.)

[–] raoul@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No problem!

I take the pictures from the Betelgeuse wikipedia article. Things is evolving fast and we can get pretty incredible pictures now!

[–] PostsFromWikipedia@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

[–] PostsFromWikipedia@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 months ago

This picture of the dramatic nebula around the bright red supergiant star Betelgeuse was created from images taken with the VISIR infrared camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). This structure, resembling flames emanating from the star, forms because the behemoth is shedding its material into space. The earlier NACO observations of the plumes are reproduced in the central disc. The small red circle in the middle has a diameter about four and half times that of the Earth’s orbit and represents the location of Betelgeuse’s visible surface. The black disc corresponds to a very bright part of the image that was masked to allow the fainter nebula to be seen.

[–] tomiant@piefed.social 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

But I'm looking at it! It's right there! All wobbly and shit! How can it not look how it looks? And how does it look if not like that?

[–] SaltySalamander@fedia.io 3 points 2 months ago

And how does it look if not like that?

Very much like our sun, only much larger and muuuuch redder.

[–] homologous@piefed.blahaj.zone 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Betelgeuse my beloved <3 <3 i hope i live to see the day you explode

[–] Verenos@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Probably already has, sadly we won’t know until that light reaches us.

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

We don't actually know how far away Betelgeuse is: it could be 500 light years away; it could be just around the corner getting a pack of ciggies and a six-pack to watch the footie on the sky box a bit later, yeah? Come around six, I'll get the missus to defrost a pizza and we can talk fantasy football. The parking might be a bit shite, but the neighbour's away this weekend, so just use their driveaway and pop a "soz" letter through their door just in case. Also, ask Suze if her brother still fixes boilers as ours has gone up this week and it could use a look-see, cheers. If you see the bailiffs outside, tell 'em to get bent.

[–] PostsFromWikipedia@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Space time is so strange. If it has "happened already," but the change hasn't propagated to us yet by the speed of light, has it really "already happened" in any actual way?

[–] homologous@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah, I was actually thinking about this the other day, it's so strange. There is no objectivity in physics and every perspective is equally true, so Betelgeuse is both alive to us on Earth, but also could be already dead to some other life closer to it. It's like trying to imagine a 4th (or 5th, depending on how you look at it) dimension, I just can't wrap my head around it

[–] catfeeder@piefed.blahaj.zone 12 points 2 months ago

Not so red, huh?

[–] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Wiki

~700x the size of our Sun. It would engulf out past mars and the asteroid belt