Supernova seen from Earth

With all the speculation about what a Betelgeuse supernova would look like from Earth, University of California, Santa Barbara, astronomer Andy Howell got tired of the back-of-the-envelope calculations. He put the problem to a pair of UCSB graduate students, Jared Goldberg and Evan Bauer, who created more precise simulations of the stars dying days.

The astronomers say theres still uncertainty over how the supernova would play out, but they were able to augment their accuracy using observations taken during Supernova 1987A, the closest known star to explode in centuries.

Life on Earth will be unharmed. But that doesnt mean it will go unnoticed. Goldberg and Bauer found that when Betelgeuse explodes, it will shine as bright as the half-Moon nine times fainter than the full Moon for more than three months.

All this brightness would be concentrated into one point, Howell says. So it would be this incredibly intense beacon in the sky that would cast shadows at night, and that you could see during the daytime. Everyone all over the world would be curious about it, because it would be unavoidable.

Humans would be able to see the supernova in the daytime sky for roughly a year, he says. And it would be visible at night with the naked eye for several years, as the supernova aftermath dims.

By the time it fades completely, Orion will be missing its left shoulder, adds Sarafina Nance, a University of California, Berkeley, graduate student whos published several studies of Betelgeuse.

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When Betelgeuse goes supernova, what will it look like from Earth? - Astronomy Magazine