Is Betelgeuse About to Explode?

Betelgeuse is a red supergiant — a type of star that's more massive and thousands of times shorter-lived than the Sun — and it is expected to end its life in a spectacular supernova explosion sometime in the next 100,000 years.

Is Beetlejuice about to go supernova?

Betelgeuse is the left shoulder of the Orion constellation (left). The star's first portrait, made with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1996, took some doing. ... Someday in the not too distant future, the star won't be able to support its own weight — it will collapse in on itself and rebound in a supernova.

Can Betelgeuse explode tomorrow?

Today, astronomers know that Betelgeuse varies in brightness because it's a dying, red supergiant star with a diameter some 700 times larger than our Sun. Someday, the star will explode as a supernova and give humanity a celestial show before disappearing from our night sky forever.