Journey to Betelgeuse- A Star Nearing Its End

Traveling to Betelgeuse, the star that could explode at any moment. Betelgeuse, a red supergiant in the Orion constellation, is nearing the end of its life. It's about 640 light years away from the solar system. This is the 10th brightest star in the sky. We reach the maximum zoom, and Betelgeuse already looks huge even from that far away. Betelgeuse's planetary system is unconfirmed, but we can use this for comparison. Get ready, we're traveling to Betelgeuse. If every one of the 8 billion people on Earth traveled toward Betelgeuse at the speed of light, none of them would arrive alive. At that speed, the distance still requires roughly 640 years. Look at Earth, just floating through space, carrying everything we've ever known. Light is insanely fast. At its speed, the moon is just 1.3 seconds away. The farthest humans in history have ever traveled is to the moon. A journey that took three days. We've reached light speed, but this is just the beginning. We'll accelerate even more as the journey continues. We don't observe any visible motion. Let's increase our speed further. We've reached 100 times the speed of light, and we're still accelerating. We're now passing Mars's orbit. This is already farther than any human has ever traveled. Even at 100 times the speed of light, space still looks empty. Ahead of us are the giant planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Increasing speed as we leave the inner solar system behind. Orbit's display is now enabled. The solar system's size is about 120 astronomical units across. 1 AU, astronomical unit. Distance from Earth to Sun, 150 million kilometer. Neptune's orbit, 30 AU from the Sun. Now that we've left the solar system behind, we focus on Betelgeuse, located in Orion's shoulder. Here's Voyager 1, tiny against the vastness of the solar system. Launched in 1977, Voyager has barely reached interstellar space and traveled just one light day. It remains the fastest spacecraft humans have ever created. The space around our solar system is almost entirely empty. The closest star beyond the Sun is four light years away. We're already traveling one light day per second, 8,600 times the speed of light, and still nothing appears to be moving. We'll have to increase our speed even more. Finally, one star begins to move. It's Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. It's only about 8.6 light years away from Earth. Our Sun is starting to look like just another average star. Every dot is a star. Some are neutron stars, some are binary systems, and some may host life. All of it, floating within the vastness of space. We're now traveling at one light year per second, about 31.6 million times the speed of light. Do you see something huge? That's Andromeda, the closest major galaxy to the Milky Way, about 2.5 million light years away. The Orion constellation seems unchanged here compared to Earth's view. Orion's belt is incredibly far away, while Rigel is much closer to us. Betelgeuse is getting closer. Betelgeuse's planetary system is estimated to extend roughly 3,400 AU, making it about 28 times larger than our solar system. We are now at the edge of Orion's shoulder, facing Betelgeuse. A star so massive and distant, yet so bright, it dominates the constellation. Its red glow outshines nearby stars. It looks lumpy because Betelgeuse is so huge that gravity at its edges becomes weak, barely holding the outer layers together. The closest planet around Betelgeuse orbits at 9 Au, similar to Saturn's orbit in our solar system. Betelgeuse's farthest planet is about 1,700 AU from the star, a distance that could fit over 12 times the diameter of our solar system. How big is Betelgeuse actually? Let's put that into perspective. These are the sizes of the planets in our solar system. Betelgeuse is about 1,000 times bigger than the Sun. What if we replaced our Sun with Betelgeuse? Betelgeuse would swallow Mercury, Venus, Earth, and even Mars coming close to Jupiter's orbit. Even from the farthest planet, Betelgeuse looks huge. I sped up to half a year per second, and Betelgeuse would swallow everything in its path. It's about 20 times heavier than our Sun. Let's place Betelgeuse 640 light years away from our solar system and imagine what would happen if it exploded. We won't see anything immediately. We would have to wait 640 years for the light from the explosion to reach our eyes. In this time lapse, time is passing at 25 days per second. The explosion could be seen in the sky during daylight and might shine brighter than the moon. I'm deaf and use sign language, so please excuse the AI narrator if it's not perfect. Thanks for traveling to Betelgeuse with me. Hit like and subscribe so we can explore even more of the cosmos together.