red dwarfs

The ultimate fate of a star depends on its initial mass. A massive star ends with a violent explosion called a supernova. The matter ejected in a supernova explosion becomes a glowing supernova remnant.

Stars die because they exhaust their nuclear fuel. Once there is no fuel left, the star collapses and the outer layers explode as a ‘supernova’. What’s left over after a supernova explosion is a ‘neutron star’ – the collapsed core of the star – or, if there’s sufficient mass, a black hole.

While most stars quietly fade away, the supergiants destroy themselves in a huge explosion, called a supernova. The death of massive stars can trigger the birth of other stars. Neutron stars are the fastest-spinnng objects in the universe. They can rotate 500 times in just one second.

What they do know is that Betelgeuse is running out of time. It’s less than 10 million years old, a youngster compared with the roughly 4.6-billion–year-old sun. But because Betelgeuse is so massive and burns through its fuel so quickly, it’s already in the final life stage of a red supergiant.

When a massive star runs out of material in its core, the star will collapse under its own gravity and turn into a supernova. Researchers have estimated that this will likely happen to Betelgeuse within the next 100,000 years, which is relatively soon in astronomical terms.

Risk by supernova type Although they would be spectacular to look at, were these “predictable” supernovae to occur, they are thought to have little potential to affect Earth. It is estimated that a Type II supernova closer than eight parsecs (26 light-years) would destroy more than half of the Earth’s ozone layer.