Mondo Knows Facts

Betelgeuse is a dying red supergiant star near a supernova explosion

The massive star in Orion will explode within the next 100,000 years

Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star located roughly 650 light-years away in the constellation Orion. Having exhausted its core hydrogen fuel, Betelgeuse has swelled to over 700 times the radius of the Sun and is expected to collapse into a supernova within the next 100,000 years.

Betelgeuse captured by ALMA
ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/E. Oโ€™Gorman/P. Kervella ยท CC BY 4.0 ยท licence ยท source

Where this comes from

ESA

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

Go further

More facts like this

Tags: betelgeuse, supergiant, star

Betelgeuse is a dying red supergiant star near a supernova explosion: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
The massive star in Orion will explode within the next 100,000 years. The figure is taken from ESA, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a space fact?
Yes. It sits on the Space shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.