Skip to content

Betelgeuse Will Briefly Disappear in Once-in-a-Lifetime Coincidence

scientificamerican.com
10 pointsUmofomia4 comments
On HN

Comments

"Briefly" in this case means a split second period of time, and you'll have to be looking at exactly the right spot, at exactly the right time.

For most potential observers this will be indistinguishable from normal air based 'twinkling'.

That said, if I still had my telescope setup and decent skies, I'd probably try to view it, just because. But naked eye? Not worth braving the cold air.

I wonder how frequent are (much longer) occultations of nearby stars with planet candidates. Would be a prime opportunity to make direct observations.

Still amazing that orbital elements can be known so precisely (although, at 50 miles, Leona is a big puppy.)

Everybody knows that you can bring Betelgeuse back by saying his name 3 times.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.