Red Supergiant Betelgeuse Hurtling Toward Space Wall -- And a Possible Explosion

Watch out! The red supergiant star that makes up the shoulder of the constellation Orion the Hunter may be slated for a collision--in 5,000 years. According to a new report released by the European Space Agency's Herschel space observatory, the star, named Betelgeuse, will slam into a wall of space dust.

Unfortunately, astronomers aren't quite sure what this wall of dust is exactly. From what they've seen, it's an odd, linear bar of material that has yet to be properly identified. If it's a completely separate object, though, the outermost arc of the shedding, aging star will collide with it in about 5,000 years. However, it will take 12,500 more years before the star itself finally hits the bar.

The star, which is roughly 1,000 times the diameter of the sun and shines 100,000 times more brightly, can be seen with the naked eye in our night sky. New images from Herschel have shown astronomers that already, the star's winds are impacting the surrounding interstellar medium. This creates a bow shock as the star hurtles through space.

Unfortunately, we may not see Betelgeuse for much longer--relatively speaking. The star has a high potential to go supernova in the next thousand years, and it's possible that the future collision with this wall of space dust may just send the star over the edge. Betelgeuse has already shed a significant fraction of its outer layers, and an inner envelope of material close to the star shows a pronounced asymmetric structure. The explosion that could be triggered may be able to be seen from Earth.