Submitted by randitothebandito t3_xt4of0 in askscience
I keep seeing all these things about a beetleguese supernova but it sounds like scientists always speak in terms of the present and are not taking into account the time it takes for the light to travel to earth?
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So we can observe these special relationships because we’ve managed to created relative perspective from distances that create an observable difference in events we’ve determined that everything is relative to light and gravity. Everything boils down to information. The information travels at a constant speed so distance becomes the variable. One event cannot effect another until the information has travelled between the two. Faster than light travel would again change how we interact with two forces of causality as we can change our distance to the event faster than the information can travel. All of that is useless because we can’t travel faster than the information. So we come back to causality. Basically, when the information travels out from a location, that event will cause a change to the local system and we observe that. Technically it happened when the effects are observed by us. Because we can’t travel faster then the effects. So the effect will take 649 years to reach us, in our galactic perspective, that’s when it happened. If we lived in the star system being discussed then the effect is when it reaches us
I’d like to add that the only means we have to observe our universe are completely beholden to the light speed rule. Radio waves and light have a maximum speed that they travel. Since technically we cannot travel faster than the methods of our observation, then when we observe an event becomes the moment it happens relative to our location. If we were closer to the event it would happen sooner but if the person closer to the event tried to tell the person farther away, the information cannot travel faster then light/radio/gravity waves anyway so both sets of information would arrive to the farther person at the same time. In essence marking the event at that time in every respect. Since we don’t exist in other solar systems and we certainly don’t exist in systems 650 light years away the point is moot. In essence, when the waves of information reach you, in whatever capacity, is when the event occurs. We can say is happened 650 years ago but but since time travel is as ridiculous as faster than light travel or even approaching speed of light, it doesn’t matter anyway
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To clarify.
Due to de distance measured in years (light spend traveling the distance) we are prompted to entablish it had happened already. But in science we say it happened when the result of the event reaches us. Then we can say that it happened in 2022 at a star 6,079 × 10^15km away, not during the siege of costantinople or the hundred years war.
Becouse of cause and effect rule cannot be broken.
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> it is almost certain that it has already gone supernova.
No it's not, stop spreading misinformation. It's only ~500-600 light years away and most models expect the star to live another 10,000-100,000 years, and even models where its remaining lifetime might be zero are just saying "at some point in the next few (ten) thousand years", with a small probability of the next 500-600. See e.g. this modeling from February, and in particular table 3 in it.
We cannot rule it out, but it looks very unlikely.
Betelgese is relatively close to us (672ly) and it's estimated to supernova in the next (50000-100000 years) so the chance is more like 1%
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newstorkcity t1_iqprb10 wrote
Given the age of the Betelgeuse in particular, it’s estimated to supernova within the next 100,000 years. Light from Betelgeuse 642 light years to reach us, so some chance that it has already supernovad, but a relatively small one (less than one percent)