Friends who have read "The Three-Body Problem" will definitely remember the "Dark Forest Strike" in the book, because it can directly destroy all civilizations in a star system.

Friends who have read " Three Body " will definitely have a deep memory of "Dark Forest Strike" in the book, because it can directly destroy all civilizations in a star system .

The book discloses two methods of attack. The first is to accelerate a small-mass object to close to the speed of light, to form a light particle , and then use the relativistic effect to obtain a huge mass and then penetrate the target star, and finally complete the attack on the target star. The three-body galaxy in the book, , was destroyed by this light particle strike.

The second way to attack is to launch a small piece of encapsulated two-dimensional space-time, is also the legendary " two-way foil " , and let it fly into the target star system and then expand it in two dimensions, extending at close to the speed of light. The speed directly makes the entire star system two-dimensional, which is the so-called " dimensionality reduction hits ". The solar system in the book finally ushered in the entire ending.

Although we know that "The Three-Body Problem" is just a science fiction novel, the astronomical community recently discovered evidence of suspected light particle strikes, which occurred on Betelgeuse 640 light-years away.

Specifically

the astronomical community first noticed the sudden drop in the brightness of Betelgeuse from the end of 2019 to the beginning of 2020. At that time, its brightness dropped by about 30% in a short period of time , a magnitude that was the highest in nearly two centuries. new high since.

If it is just a change in brightness, astronomers can also use dust clouds or dust belts to explain it. But the problem is that Betelgeuse also undergoes large-scale deformation while the brightness changes. In the images taken by the astronomical telescope , it It has lost its former round appearance, and has become an irregular sphere.

The deformation and brightness changes of Betelgeuse made the astronomical community realize that this red supergiant 640 light-years away to 724 light-years away is not simple, and a recent paper published in the Astrophysical Journal It is even said: Betelgeuse's atmospheric temperature and density also changed during its sudden decrease in brightness. A powerful shock wave passed through Betelgeuse's atmosphere in an instant, which led to various changes in it. .

The observation data in the paper also show: The surface temperature of Betelgeuse dropped by more than 1200k after the sudden drop in brightness , and was accompanied by a large amount of material loss. The model shows that Betelgeuse is like a balloon that is gradually deflating. .

So what exactly penetrated Betelgeuse?

First of all, the impact of light particles emitted by intelligent civilization can be ruled out, because there is currently no evidence that there are other intelligent civilizations other than humans in our universe, and the shock wave that penetrated Betelgeuse showed the form of a pressure wave in the data , which may be related to It is related to the atmospheric activity of Betelgeuse, because it is a red supergiant that may explode supernovae at any time.

As the tenth brightest star in the earth's night sky, Betelgeuse, which has entered the final stage of evolution, has less than 100,000 years of life left. The hydrogen element inside it has been exhausted at this time, helium The element and other heavy elements are gathered at its core.

After losing the energy released from the inside out by the nuclear fusion of hydrogen elements, Betelgeuse's shell has begun to collapse inward under the action of gravity. Every movement of the shell and atmosphere will cause Betelgeuse to be subject to pressure waves , and then changes in brightness and form occur.

It’s just that because the distance between Betelgeuse and the Earth is at least 640 light years, all the changes in Betelgeuse observed by astronomers are actually what it looked like 640 years ago., the current situation of Betelgeuse We won't know until 640 years later, and Betelgeuse may even have gone supernova by now, with high-energy radiation and a stream of charged particles already on its way to Earth.

Will the supernova explosion of Betelgeuse affect the earth?

As the most massive red supergiant near the solar system, the astronomical community has deduced the impact of the supernova explosion of Betelgeuse more than once.

The first thing that is certain is that we cannot warn of its explosion. Because there is a 640 light-year distance between the earth and it , so the impact of the Betelgeuse supernova explosion will be more concentrated on the high-energy radiation it releases. And the harm caused by gamma rays .

According to the supernova explosion model of red supergiant stars, the energy released by this type of celestial body at the moment of explosion is equivalent to the sum of the energy released in the past billions of years. At that time, a large amount of stellar material will be accelerated to a level close to the speed of light , moving in a spherical shape. Spreading around, the stellar material is accompanied by the release of energy including gamma rays.

In short, at the moment of the supernova explosion, Betelgeuse will shine in the full spectrum, including visible light, and when its light and energy reach the Earth, it will likely be brighter than the full moon.

At that time, people will first discover that there is an extra star in the night sky, or an extra sun in the daytime. The high-energy charged particles that follow will sweep away all the electricity-consuming equipment on the earth. Atmospheric ionization can even reach the level of At the level of aurora generated in the equatorial region, human civilization will briefly return to the era without electricity in the early days of the industrial revolution.

Of course, the above consequences are a bit demonizing Betelgeuse. Astronomers believe that although it is very large in size and mass, because it is too far away from the earth, the energy released after its supernova explosion should reach the earth. It has already decayed almost as much as and will not bring any big losses to human civilization.