Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio Pay
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Bogelbaum. Here it's been called one of
Speaker 1: the most famous stars of all time. Beetlejuice, yes like
Speaker 1: the movie, but spelled differently, is part of the well
Speaker 1: known Orion constellation and, as usually the tenth brightest star
Speaker 1: in the heavens visible to the naked eye. We spoke
Speaker 1: via email with Andy Howell, staff astronomer at the Los
Speaker 1: Cumbrous Observatory and a physicist at the University of California,
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara. He said, Beetle Juice over time has been
Speaker 1: more famous than Mickey Mouse or any human alive today.
Speaker 1: That's because, over hundreds of thousands of years, our human
Speaker 1: nighttime entertainment was looking up at the night sky. But
Speaker 1: in October of twenty nineteen, Beetlejuice mysteriously began to dim.
Speaker 1: It's drop in brilliance was apparent even to casual observers.
Speaker 1: Astronomers were bewildered by its sudden shift. Some suspected the
Speaker 1: Beetle Juice was running out of fuel and perhaps going supernova.
Speaker 1: Stars that go supernova create the most powerful explosions that
Speaker 1: occur in space. However, more recent research indicates that Beetle
Speaker 1: Juice is not necessarily on the verge of death. It
Speaker 1: may simply have produced a debris field of sorts that
Speaker 1: temporarily blocked it's incredible brightness. How Will explained Beetle Juice
Speaker 1: is a red supergiant star about twelve times the mass
Speaker 1: of the Sun, but a whopping nine hundred times the diameter.
Speaker 1: That means that if Beetlejuice were where the Sun is,
Speaker 1: it would easily swallow Earth and extend out to beyond
Speaker 1: the orbit of Jupiter. He adds that red supergiants are
Speaker 1: stars at the end of their lives, after they've fused
Speaker 1: all the hydrogen in their cores into helium. As they
Speaker 1: burn heavier and heavier elements, their cores contract and their
Speaker 1: outer layers puff up to extraordinary dimensions. Beetle Juice has
Speaker 1: always been known for its variable brightness. Generally, these fluctuations
Speaker 1: occur semi regularly and only in modest amounts. Howell told
Speaker 1: us that this happens because it pulsates as its stellar
Speaker 1: atmosphere turns like a pot of boiling water, tossing around
Speaker 1: huge blobs of material. But this more noticeable and sustained
Speaker 1: dimming was a bit different. We also spoke via email
Speaker 1: with Outward Guynen and astrophysics and planetary science professor at Villanova.
Speaker 1: He said, the cause of the dimming is under discussion
Speaker 1: and argument. The dimming could be due to the ejection
Speaker 1: of gas that cool to dust and block the star's light.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the recent dimming, called the Great
Speaker 1: Dimming or Great fainting, occurred at the time expected on
Speaker 1: the four thirty day periodicity, so in this case would
Speaker 1: be related to a cooling caused by pulsation or the
Speaker 1: presence of a super large convection cell. Continuing observations should
Speaker 1: answer this question soon. By April, the star had returned
Speaker 1: to its normal brightness. But although Beetlejuice is recent demming
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to indicate its eminent death. Its end is
Speaker 1: coming someday, I will explained. Beetlejuice is going to explode
Speaker 1: one day as a supernova. That could happen tomorrow, or
Speaker 1: it could be in a hundred thousand years. We can't tell.
Speaker 1: But when it does, it will be spectacular. It could
Speaker 1: get as bright as the quarter moon, so bright you
Speaker 1: could read by it at night. It will stay really
Speaker 1: bright for months, and you should even be able to
Speaker 1: see it in the daytime for about a year. Supernova
Speaker 1: in the past certainly left profound impressions on humans. Chinese
Speaker 1: astronomers documented a supernova from the year ten forty, and
Speaker 1: it resulted in the crab Nebula, one of the more
Speaker 1: famous bodies in the night sky. Howell said, sadly, we
Speaker 1: haven't had a supernova in our galaxy witnessed by humans
Speaker 1: in more than four hundred years. Just as Galileo was
Speaker 1: perfecting the telescope in sixteen o four, one supernova happened
Speaker 1: and he was able to witness it and lecture about it.
Speaker 1: How actually attended a conference celebrating the four anniversary of
Speaker 1: the supernova that Galileo saw. It was held partly in
Speaker 1: Galileo's house and partly in that lecture hall where he
Speaker 1: taught students. Howell said, these events are so astounding, humans
Speaker 1: find a way to remember them and keep talking about
Speaker 1: them for hundreds or thousands of years. Guynan too, hopes
Speaker 1: that he's around to witness what's sure to be a
Speaker 1: thrilling spectacle. He's been carrying out photometry of beetle juice
Speaker 1: for more than forty years, and he's continually fascinated, in
Speaker 1: part because it's so hard to predict what this strange
Speaker 1: and mysterious star will do next. He said, Beetle Juice
Speaker 1: is a huge, unstable star on the verge of becoming
Speaker 1: upright supernova. Even though the odds of seeing this happen
Speaker 1: in my lifetime are very very low, I nevertheless always
Speaker 1: keep an eye on it, just in case, on a
Speaker 1: long shot, it goes supernova. I would love to see this.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to take a gander at Beetle Juice
Speaker 1: for yourself, Howell told us how to find it. Quote,
Speaker 1: just for three close, equally spaced stars, they're unique in
Speaker 1: all the sky, and that makes up the belt of Orion.
Speaker 1: There are four bright stars above and below those forming
Speaker 1: a rectangle that make up the shoulders and legs of Orion.
Speaker 1: If you're in the northern hemisphere. The upper left star,
Speaker 1: which for Oriyan would be his right shoulder, is Beetle Cheese.
Speaker 1: You can tell because it's red and bright. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by Nathan Chandler and produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other stellar topics,
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