COULD BETELGEUSE EXPLODE IN OUR LIFETIMES? According to a new study, the answer is "yes." A team of astronomers led by Hideyuki Saio (Tohoku University) find that Betelgeuse has puffed up far larger than previously thought, more than 1200 times wider than the sun. This means the giant star may be running out of carbon fuel. "After carbon is exhausted in the core, a core-collapse leading to a supernova explosion is expected in a few tens of years," write the authors. Read their research here.
ANOTHER OUTBURST OF GREEN AIRGLOW: It just happened again. For the second time in as many weeks, Aaron Watson photographed an outburst of bright green airglow over the West Elk Mountains of Colorado:
"I woke up around midnight and could see the streaks and ripples with my unaided eye," says Watson. "They were cutting across the Milky Way. The display lasted for about an hour until it was washed out by lunar twilight from the rising gibbous Moon."
Green airglow is produced by photochemistry in Earth's upper atmosphere. There is a thin layer of air 95 km high where oxygen atoms (O) and oxygen molecules (O2) mix together. When O bumps into O2, the collision creates a spark of green light--airglow.
Solar Max is boosting this process. Right now, the active sun is heating Earth's upper atmosphere, increasing the rate of O vs. O2 collisions. Brighter-than-normal airglow is the result.
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RARE MR. SPOCK WINE STOPPER: You can't buy this on Amazon--or anywhere else. Only the Earth to Sky Store has the rare Mr. Spock Wine Stopper. On Dec. 17, 2022, this handcrafted resin bottle stopper flew to the stratosphere onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $170.10 (the serial number of the Enterprise divided by 10). This collector’s item comes with a gift card showing the stopper in flight and telling the story of its trip to the edge of space and back again.
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