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