http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/20/two-suns-twin-stars_n_811864.html

Oh, and I'll say this:  I think the whole Betelguese is just one more story. 

Kind of like "fireworks," and such.  One more story to keep the masses pacified. 

Wow, that reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's story "The Star" - the star over Bethlehem was actually some other civilization's sun going supernova:
http://faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/engl510/star.htm

It's funny, because I remember when the Betelguese story first broke.  There were all these articles about how we *probably* wouldn't see it, it could take hundreds of years, we don't know the timing, etc. etc. etc.  

Don't worry, when you *do* see two suns in the sky, it's DEFINITELY not nibiru or planet x or anything like that.  It's something else, that we DO NOT NEED TO WORRY ABOUT.

LOL

Crazy stuff going on in the skies.

wait, rbrgs knows about this. He told us about it in the old forum
then somebody wrote and article about it saying it was crazy talk and he didn't mention it anymore.
I knew he was right!

Just wanted to say too, can you imagine how cool it will be when this happens? to be alive at this time??
It's an amazing and wonderful thing that we could be alive to see something this historic!
I'm in favor of it. LOL 

Me, too, Pam.  Ain't nuthin' we can do about it, so we might as well ride the ride, and enjoy the show.  :D

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/21/tech/main7269888.shtml

An article debunking, already.

To me, this article is more a way to explain the possibility of two "suns in the sky", rather than actually telling us Betelguese is gonna go nova.

The actual science in the original article is pretty good; they talked with scientist Brad Carter who discusses the scenario of Betelgeuse going supernova. The whole story is pretty interesting - I wrote about it in detail the last time there was nonsense about Betelgeuse blowing up - but in a nutshell Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star in Orion with about 20 times the mass of the Sun, and it’s very near the end of its life. When stars this massive die, they explode as supernovae. The distance to Betelgeuse is unclear (it has a very puffy outer atmosphere which makes distance determination somewhat dicey) but it’s something like a bit more than 600 light years, way, way too far away to hurt us. It's the question of when that the two articles go off the rails. Betelgeuse may explode tomorrow night, or it may not go kerblooie until the year 100,000 A.D. We don’t know. But given that huge range, the odds of it blowing up next year are pretty slim. And clearly, the original article was really trying to tie in the 2012 date to this, even when it has nothing to do with anything. The tie-in was a rickety link to scuttlebutt on the web about it, but that’s about it. What’s worse, the HuffPo article attributes the date to Dr. Carter himself, but in the original article he never says anything about it; the connection is all made by the article author. Given how popular HuffPo is, I imagine a lot of people will now think an actual scientist is saying Betelgeuse will blow up in 2012. OK then, tell you what: I’m an actual scientist, and I would give the odds of Betelgeuse going supernova in 2012 at all - let alone close to December, the supposed doomsdate - as many thousands to one against. It’s not impossible, it’s just really really really really really really really unlikely. 

Signs in the Heavens . . . . signs in the heavens . . . . where have I heard that phrase? 

Well, before I brought this up over at LATOC, wikipedia said sometime in the next 1000 years, not 100,000.

The data that all the astronomers were talking about were new measurements that Betelgeuse is collapsing (or has collapsed; we're seeing it when the light arrives, not when it happens) at over 200m/sec; and has been for at least the last 15 years.  This is based on the assumption that Betelgeuse is 600ly away'; no one's actually sure 'cause it's not on the main sequence and we're not really sure how big it is.  Opinion varies from as big as the orbit of Mars to as big as the orbit of Jupiter.  Think of the volume of a sphere...20 solar masses is nothing but a bold faced lie.  200 solar masses is a better guess, but even that may be wildly low.

600ly is not a safe distance; approximately an hour after the light arrives, the hard radiation follows.  And two suns, even if it's only for six weeks, means we're going to lose a whole year of crops.

If someone had good observational data, and could travel faster than light, it should be possible to predict when the light from the nova would actually arrive, at least to the day, if not the hour, and incorporate this knowledge into a calender.

It's here too:

Earth 'to get second sun this year' as supernova turns night into day

The Earth could soon have a second sun, at least for a week or two.

The cosmic phenomenon will happen when one of the brightest stars in the night sky explodes into a supernova.

And, according to a report yesterday, the most stunning light show in the planet’s history could happen as soon as this year.

Earth will undoubtedly have a front row seat when the dying red supergiant star Betelgeuse finally blows itself into oblivion.

The explosion will be so bright that even though the star in the Orion constellation is 640 light-years away, it will still turn night into day and appear like there are two suns in the sky for a few weeks.

The only real debate is over exactly when it will happen.

In stellar terms, Betelgeuse is predicted to crash and burn in the very near future. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to rush out and buy sunglasses.

The Internet is abuzz with doomsday theories linking the supernova to the Mayan calendar’s prediction of an Armageddon in 2012, fuelled by the association of the word ‘Betelgeuse’ with the devil.

But experts claimed that even if the big bang is looming, it will still happen way too far from Earth to do us any harm.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1349383/Earth-second-sun-year-supernova-turns-night-day.html#ixzz1BkbpQrkX

OK, I'm posting this twice, but it's weird.  I didn't think much of the Betelguese story although the whole "two suns" thing is a little weird about it. 

But now, this feels like a game of darts.  Here's reason #2 why you're going to see a second sun in the sky:  a large comet.  And we know Elenin is on the way, another "new" comet from the Oort cloud that will come very close to the sun and the earth.  Who knows...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/sun-pelted-icy-comet-storm-20110120-035611-311.html

For 10 days in December, a mob of icy comets pelted the sun in an extraordinary cosmic storm. Scientists who monitored the solar tempest now think the flurry of sundiving comets might herald a much bigger comet to come – one that could potentially be visible to the naked eye.

"The storm began on Dec. 13th and ended on the 22nd," Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. "During that time, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) detected 25 comets diving into the sun. It was crazy!"

These sundiving comets, known as sungrazers, are not altogether uncommon. In fact, the sun-circling SOHO spacecraft will usually see one plunge into the sun and disintegrate every few days. "But 25 comets in just ten days, that's unprecedented," Battams said.

"The comets were 10-meter class objects, about the size of a room or a house," said Matthew Knight of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz. "As comets go, these are considered small."

The SOHO spacecraft's coronagraph uses an opaque disk to block the glare of the sun, creating something similar to an artificialeclipse. This helps to reveal faint objects that Earth-bound telescopes cannot detect. Amateur astronomers around the world can then closely analyze the images from SOHO to search for new comets.

SOHO was launched in 1996, and since that time, has found more than 2,000 comets, which is a record for any astronomer or space mission.

Scientists think the recent sundiving comet storm could be a signal that a much larger sungrazer is to come, one that people might be able to see with the naked eye even during the day.

"It's just a matter of time," Battams said. "We know there are some big ones out there."

After all, similar occurrences have happened before.

In 1965, Comet Ikeya-Seki appeared out of nowhere, dove toward the sun and skimmed the surface from a height of only about 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometers). Since Ikeya-Seki's nucleus is relatively large (about 3 miles or 5 km wide), it survived the encounter and emerged as one of the brightest comets of the past thousand years.

People in Japan were able to see it in broad daylight right beside the morning sun, and they watched as the comet fell into at least three pieces before receding back into the solar system.

Other sungrazing comets were observed in 1843, 1882, 1963 and 1970. These sundiving comets are related to one another, and astronomers classify them as part of the "Kreutz family," named after the 19th century astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who first studied them as a group. All Kreutz comets are thought to be the remains of one giant comet that broke apart several centuries ago.

But whether Comet Ikeya-Seki's spectacular dive came after a storm like the one in December remains unknown.

"We have not seen a really big Kreutz comet in the era of space-based coronagraphs," Knight said. "SOHO wasn't around in 1965 to record how many little comets dove into the sun before Ikeya-Seki. It might be 200 comets per year – or it could be 1,000. Without more information, we can't know for sure how soon we might be privileged to see one of the real monsters."

Well, before I brought this up over at LATOC, wikipedia said sometime in the next 1000 years, not 100,000.The data that all the astronomers were talking about were new measurements that Betelgeuse is collapsing (or has collapsed; we're seeing it when the light arrives, not when it happens) at over 200m/sec; and has been for at least the last 15 years.  This is based on the assumption that Betelgeuse is 600ly away'; no one's actually sure 'cause it's not on the main sequence and we're not really sure how big it is.  Opinion varies from as big as the orbit of Mars to as big as the orbit of Jupiter.  Think of the volume of a sphere...20 solar masses is nothing but a bold faced lie.  200 solar masses is a better guess, but even that may be wildly low.600ly is not a safe distance; approximately an hour after the light arrives, the hard radiation follows.  And two suns, even if it's only for six weeks, means we're going to lose a whole year of crops.If someone had good observational data, and could travel faster than light, it should be possible to predict when the light from the nova would actually arrive, at least to the day, if not the hour, and incorporate this knowledge into a calender.

-rbrgs

All the articles that appeared to debunk your little LATOC posting did nothing for me.  We have no real idea what would happen, what is happening, when it will happen, etc., and their definite knowledge that all would be ok and it wouldn't be soon made me think the opposite.  LOL, I am a contrarian.

I do know this.  Of all the ways to go, I wouldn't mind death by supernova.  Even if it was painful.  Has a nice poetic ring to it.  

hey, maybe this is why the elites are building those multi million dollar bunkers?

pam, yeah, same thought occurred to me.

tlr, "the Awareness" mentioned Arthur Clarke's 2001/2010 works as being indicative pretty much of what was going to transpire . . . sometime in April or May apparently.

I'm just glad the 10th of March is on a Sunday.  I was wracking my brain for a couple of days figuring out how to get everyone back together on a weekday.  Kids in schools all over town.

Now we'll all be home.  *sigh*

But what is April or May?!  These dates are making my head spin trying to keep up with them all.

hey, here's something that I posted in the news blog today.

Time: Supernova Blast: Giant Star Eta Carinae to Explode Any Day

of course, they say any day now, or in a thousand years.
this is a whole 'nuther star too. Right?
way cool.