Question

b) The distance of the red supergiant Betelgeuse is approximately 427 light years. If it were to explode as a supernova, it would be one of the brightest stars in the sky. Right now, the brightest star in the sky other than the Sun is Sirius (which has a luminosity of 26LSun and is 26 light years away). How much brighter than Sirius would the Betelgeuse supernova be (from our point of view) if it reached a maximum luminosity of 10^10LSun? c) There have been some claims that when Betelgeuse explodes it will be like having a second Sun in the sky. Compare Betelgeuse’s brightness to the Sun’s brightness at Earth. Is this likely to be correct?

Answer 1

Answer:

b) Betelgeuse would be $\approx 1.43 \cdot 10^{6}$ times brighter than Sirius

c) Since Betelgeuse brightness from Earth compared to the Sun is $\approx 1.37 \cdot 10^{-5} }$ the statement saying that it would be like a second Sun is incorrect

Explanation:

The start brightness is related to it luminosity thought the following equation:

$B = \displaystyle{\frac{L}{4\pi d^2}}$ (1)

where $B$ is the brightness, $L$ is the star luminosity and $d$, the distance from the star to the point where the brightness is calculated (measured). Thus:

b) $B_{Betelgeuse} = \displaystyle{\frac{10^{10}L_{Sun}}{4\pi (427\ ly)^2}}$ and $B_{Sirius} = \displaystyle{\frac{26L_{Sun}}{4\pi (26\ ly)^2}}$ where $L_{Sun}$ is the Sun luminosity ($3.9 x 10^{26} W$) but we don't need to know this value for solving the problem. $ly$ is light years.

Finding the ratio between the two brightness we get:

$\displaystyle{\frac{B_{Betelgeuse}}{B_{Sirius}}=\frac{10^{10}L_{Sun}}{4\pi (427\ ly)^2} \times \frac{4\pi (26\ ly)^2}{26L_{Sun}} \approx 1.43 \cdot 10^{6} }$

c) we can do the same as in b) but we need to know the distance from the Sun to the Earth, which is $1.581 \cdot 10^{-5}\ ly$. Then

$\displaystyle{\frac{B_{Betelgeuse}}{B_{Sun}}=\frac{10^{10}L_{Sun}}{4\pi (427\ ly)^2} \times \frac{4\pi (1.581\cdot 10^{-5}\ ly)^2}{1\ L_{Sun}} \approx 1.37 \cdot 10^{-5} }$

Notice that since the star luminosities are given with respect to the Sun luminosity we don't need to use any value a simple states the Sun luminosity as the unit, i.e 1. From this result, it is clear that when Betelgeuse explodes it won't be like having a second Sun, it brightness will be 5 orders of magnitude smaller that our Sun brightness.