# beetlejuice star **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 1, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801 "2011-04-01T15:18:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![shareve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@shareve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shareve)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/1 "2011-04-01T15:18:44Z")
I heard that the beetlejuice star has a blackhole and inside the blackhole there is a cross is this true? Nobody seems to know! can anybody answer this question or tell me where i can find this? ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/2 "2011-04-01T15:25:04Z")
Yo dawg … I heard u liek crosses, and stars, and holes, so I put a cross in a black hole in a star so u can … _Ahem_ Sorry, having some April first fun, channeling 4chan there. According to Wikipedia, Betelgeuse doesn’t have a black hole companion, and generally, black holes aren’t described as having anything in their centers. To know more, you might want to read about Cygnus, which is theorized to orbit a black hole. > **[Betelgeuse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse)** > > Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star of spectral type M1-2 and one of the largest visible to the naked eye. It is usually the tenth-brightest star in the night sky and, after Rigel, the second-brightest in the constellation of Orion. It is a distinctly reddish, semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude, varying between +0.0 and +1.6, has the widest range displayed by any first-magnitude star. At near-infrared wavelengths, Betelgeuse is the brightest star in the night sky. Its Bayer desi... > **[Cygnus X-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_X-1)** > > Cygnus X-1 (abbreviated Cyg X-1) is a galactic X-ray source in the constellation Cygnus and was the first such source widely accepted to be a black hole. It was discovered in 1971 during a rocket flight and is one of the strongest X-ray sources detectable from Earth, producing a peak X-ray flux density of 2.3×10−23 W/(m2⋅Hz) (2.3×103 jansky). It remains among the most studied astronomical objects in its class. The compact object is now estimated to have a mass about 21.2 times Cygnus X-1 belong... ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/3 "2011-04-01T15:26:47Z")
1. It’s “Betelgeuse.” 2. As to the black hole, see [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=594264). 3. As to the cross, I have no idea what to tell you. Frankly that rings my “Christian-BS” bell, but perhaps if you could enlighten us on where exactly you heard that we might have a better idea of what you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/4 "2011-04-01T15:31:24Z")
Betelgeuse does not have a black hole, and even if it did, you wouldn’t be able to look inside it to see if there was a cross. The reason black holes are called black holes is that light cannot escape from them. So anything that is inside them cannot be seen. The main interesting thing about Betelgeuse is that it’s considered quite likely to go ka-blooey and turn into a supernova fairly soon. (NB on a cosmic timescale, fairly soon could be hundreds of thousands of years from now). When it does, it’ll be pretty spectacular and could be as bright as the full moon, but won’t harm the Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/5 "2011-04-01T15:35:20Z")
> [@shareve](#): > > I heard that the beetlejuice star has a blackhole and inside the blackhole there is a cross is this true? Nobody seems to know! can anybody answer this question or tell me where i can find this? Alpha Orionis is Betelgeuse, literally “house of the giant” (i.e., Orion), a variant on the Arabic name that means “shoulder or armpit of the giant”, from its location where the raised right arm of the constellation joins the torso. It’s a supergiant star, an irregular variable, thought to be approaching the point where it will go supernova (though whether this is tomorrow or in 50,000 years is debatable). The name is properly pronounced “bet-el-Jews”, not “beetle-juice.” It’s as sure as anything we can say about a place we cannot see that the core of the star is not yet a black hole, though it may become one after it goes supernova. The core of Betelgeuse is most likely unbelievably hot, in the billions of degrees, at a temperature that will fuse oxygen and related elements to silicon. And if it were a black hole, then (a) Betelgeuse would not be shining as brightly as it does, because it would not be a supergiant any more, and (b) nobody would know what it inside it, other than the mathematical abstraction “a singularity”, because the definition of a black hole is something that we do not and cannot find out in any way what is within it. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/6 "2011-04-01T15:39:12Z")
What does any of this have to do with Michael Keaton? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/7 "2011-04-01T15:41:17Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > What does any of this have to do with Michael Keaton? I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a cross in some hole. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/8 "2011-04-01T15:47:17Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > but won’t harm the Earth. Sure, as long as that cross doesn’t hit us. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/9 "2011-04-01T16:00:19Z")
Betelgeuse is also an irregular variable star, a fact which the Encyclopedia Brittanica seems to be unaware of, although the American Association of Variable Star Observers has many, many years of records of its variation. Several years ago this data was analyzed and a Fourier decomposition was done, which identified six separate periods, explaining why no single period had been identified earlier. The variability was first pointed out by John Herschel in the 19th century. He actually discovered it twice – he apparently forgot that he had discovered it, then rediscovered the effect when looking through notes of his observations. as if in honor of this, people have been forgetting that Betelgeuse is a variable star many times in the intervening years. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/10 "2011-04-01T16:18:59Z")
**Cal** , you apparently forgot that **Polycarp** already mentioned that it was an irregular variable four posts before you. > [@](#): > > The name is properly pronounced “bet-el-Jews”, not “beetle-juice.” That might, for all I know, be the proper pronunciation in Arabic, but astronomers really do pronounce it as “beetle-juice”. To be completely thorough, it is possible (though probably unlikely) that Betelgeuse has already gone supernova, and that we just haven’t seen it happen yet because of its distance and the finite speed of light. When it does or did die, it’s pretty likely that it’ll leave behind a black hole. So it _might_ be a black hole right now, but we’d have no way of knowing that. And let me just say that, even as fundamentalist Christian e-mail glurge, this story is pretty weird… What is a cross in a black hole supposed to signify? Jesus is in Hell? Quoth **Arkcon** : > [@](#): > > To know more, you might want to read about Cygnus, which is theorized to orbit a black hole. This is my best guess about what the OP heard. Cygnus is not a single star, but a constellation, the brightest stars of which form a cross shape. And one of the stars in Cygnus (not the whole constellation, and not an otherwise notable one) is known to have a black hole companion. So the OP might have heard that there’s a black hole in a cross-shaped constellation, and gotten them mixed up. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/11 "2011-04-01T16:26:45Z")
> [@shareve](#): > > I heard that the beetlejuice star has a blackhole and inside the blackhole there is a cross is this true? Nobody seems to know! can anybody answer this question or tell me where i can find this? You heard wrong. In fact, whatever you heard is not only not right, it is so far removed from reality as to not even count as being wrong. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/12 "2011-04-01T16:36:31Z")
> [@](#): > > Cal, you apparently forgot that Polycarp already mentioned that it was an irregular variable four posts before you. But he didn’t say the other stuff I had in the post ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/13 "2011-04-01T17:00:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **Cal** , you apparently forgot that **Polycarp** already mentioned that it was an irregular variable four posts before you. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > But he didn’t say the other stuff I had in the post This is clearly a double instance of the **Herschel-Meacham Effect** : ("_…as if in honor of this, people have been forgetting that Betelgeuse is a variable star many times in the intervening years._ "). First, **Cal** forgot I had written that, but prior to that I forgot to say what he said. 🙂 > [@Chronos](#): > > To be completely thorough, it is possible (though probably unlikely) that Betelgeuse has already gone supernova, and that we just haven’t seen it happen yet because of its distance and the finite speed of light. When it does or did die, it’s pretty likely that it’ll leave behind a black hole. So it _might_ be a black hole right now, but we’d have no way of knowing that. The concept of simultanaeity across astronomical distances with the _c_ limit on information transfer becomes a hairy one. Suffice it to say that there exist frames of reference that might simultaneously observe Betelgeuse going supernova and broadcasts on astronomy from Earth that mention that theorists say that it might go supernova, though it hasn’t done so yet from our perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/14 "2011-04-01T17:06:53Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > What does any of this have to do with Michael Keaton? Pffft. Star? He was the “and” character! He only got 17 minutes of movie time! ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/15 "2011-04-01T18:24:55Z")
Stars don’t have black holes inside them. Not for long, at least. The material that makes up the star would fall into the black hole pretty quickly. Stars can become black holes, but they can’t have black holes inside them. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/16 "2011-04-01T19:44:49Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > Stars can become black holes, but they can’t have black holes inside them. Oh come on. A few years ago I watched a made for TV movie about a black hole. Scientists created one by accident. It was lurking in a university basement for a while, but then escaped to wreak some real havoc. Cops shot at it, but it just absorbed the bullets and grew stronger! I can’t remember how they finally killed it, but I think it had something to do with reversing polarity on it. Anyway, my point is that if there can be a black hole inside of a university basement, there can be one inside of a star. TV movies prove this. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/17 "2011-04-01T21:25:19Z")
> [@](#): > > The concept of simultanaeity across astronomical distances with the c limit on information transfer becomes a hairy one. Suffice it to say that there exist frames of reference that might simultaneously observe Betelgeuse going supernova and broadcasts on astronomy from Earth that mention that theorists say that it might go supernova, though it hasn’t done so yet from our perspective. Well, yes, of course. I was implicitly assuming a suitable reference frame, such as the center of mass frame of Betelgeuse and the Sun, or of the Galaxy, or the isotropic frame of the cosmic microwave background (all of which are approximately the same, for relativistic purposes). But for future reference, it’s not a matter of which event the hypothetical astronomer _detects_ first-- That’ll depend on where e is, not es reference frame. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/18 "2011-04-01T22:34:31Z")
Michael Keaton might want to have that looked at-sounds pretty serious. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/19 "2011-04-01T22:45:28Z")
What if you had a black hole made entirely out of smaller black holes? And all those little black holes had Uzis? Now that would be Bad Ass! ---
**Author:** ![Dano83860](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a4c791/32.png) [@Dano83860](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dano83860)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2011, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801/20 "2011-04-02T03:01:17Z")
I’ve always like Betelgeuse because it is Orion’s armpit. How cool is that?😃 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beetlejuice-star/576801.md?page=2)