Over the last weekend, astronomy Twitter started noting that the red giant Betelgeuse, the prominent shoulder of Orion was looking visibly dimmer in the sky, and I had a few people reach out to me and ask me if it was really happening and if I knew what was going on.

This is exciting, of course, because Betelgeuse is living on borrowed time, and it could explode as a supernova any day now. Or, it might not detonate for another 100,000 years. We just don’t know.

What’s Betelgeuse up to? Is this a sign that it’s about to explode? And what would it mean if it did?

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References:
  / 1209207523179237376  
  / what-will-happen-when-betelgeuse-explodes  
https://www.eso.org/public/usa/images...
https://hubblesite.org/image/4027/gal...
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso...
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?r...
https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/fe...
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https://www.astro.princeton.edu/~gk/A...
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01852.pdf
https://aasnova.org/2018/01/03/astrop...
https://neutrinos.fnal.gov/sources/su...
https://snews.bnl.gov/
https://researchblog.duke.edu/2014/01...
https://aasnova.org/2018/04/20/captur...
https://www.phys.hawaii.edu/~jgl/nuas...