LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB and CNN) -- One of the brightest stars in one of the most recognizable constellations may soon explode, some scientists believe.
Betelgeuse — which is pronounced Beetlejuice — usually is the 9th-brightest object you can see from earth, but it has been dimming rapidly since October.
According to a report from CNN, scientists believe the dimming may be a prelude to the star exploding, or going supernova — but it’s not clear when or even if that’s going to happen. Some scientists say the dimming is just a phase.
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant whose size is difficult to comprehend: Its diameter is estimated to be 700 times the size of our sun. Put another way, it is at least as big as the orbit of Mars around the sun, according to the Green Bank Observatory, in West Virginia.
Ed Guinan, an astronomy professor at Villanova University, told CNN that Betelgeuse is now only the 23rd-brightest object in the sky and that in the last half century, it has never dimmed as aggressively as now.
"What causes the supernova is deep inside the star," Guinan said. And because the star is so huge, it's impossible to tell what's going on so far down.
And although Guinan believes it is nearing the end of its 10-million-year lifespan, it likely won't go supernova in our lifetimes.
"It'll probably happen in the next 200,000 to 300,000 years," Guinan said.
Betelgeuse also is one of the four stars that form a rectangle in the constellation “Orion,” named after a hunter in Greek mythology.
The constellation is one of the most recognizable in the northern hemisphere’s winter sky and also holds significance for American Indian tribes. The Ojibwa, for example, call the constellation the "Kabibona’kan," or "Winter Maker," as its presence heralds winter, according to the Newark Museum's Dryfuss Planetarium. And for the Lakota, the three stars in the center of the four-star rectangle represent a bison’s spine, according to the Rapid City Journal. Those three stars are generally referred to as Orion’s belt.
One of the other four stars that form the rectangle also has a pop culture connection: The third-brightest star is called “Bellatrix,” a name that may be familiar to fans of the “Harry Potter” franchise, as one of the villains is named Bellatrix Lestrange.
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