Ranjona Banerji | How gold star journals get their science wrong

Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star, the western shoulder of the hunter Orion. The constellation is one of the best known in the night sky. The name comes from the Arabic via French, shoulder of the giant, “bit-al-jauza”.

There is uncertainty about as big as the star on the pronunciation of its name. When I was young, we were told it was “Beetelgeeze” with a hard “g”. This carried on until the 1988 comedy film Beetlejuice arrived. It was difficult to tell the parents’ generation that they were wrong and even more difficult to change a habit of a lifetime.

How did we manage before the Internet?

I for one have forgotten how to look at the funny letters in a dictionary and figure out pronunciation from them. I used to know. Really, I did.

Anyway, this Betelgeuse or Bit Al-Jauza, is on its last legs. It is massive, it is in our galaxy and it will soon go supernova. The problem is the “soon”. In astronomical terms, soon could be anything from tomorrow to 100,000 years.

For context, Betelgeuse shines over 7000 times brighter than our sun. When it goes supernova, it may well be visible in the day time. And after this, is when all hell breaks loose in the world of news.

Because my dear friends in the general media will make up or misunderstand all scientific evidence and hypotheses and then broadcast the most sensational elements of any new information. This is why you almost never get any science news in non-science publications. Research is often full of theories and complicated mathematical proofs; it is high on uncertainties and counter-arguments. The scientist has to cover as many possibilities. The journalist wants drama, which is usually found in uncertified theories. The biggest demands for sensationalism come from two far removed aspects of human life — glamorous people and science. Stars and stars.

A couple of years ago, Betelgeuse appeared to become dimmer. Although it is a variable star — it dims and brightens — this dimness was extraordinary. It was named The Great Dimming. The Internet was full of excitement. Then the dimming turned out to be dust and gas. Like Delhi meets a Great Dimming every winter. Explosion was not imminent nor contingent on the loss of brightness.

Now a new theory says the explosion is imminent. Callooh Callay! Earth will witness a supernova after ages — the last one we all saw was in 1604! People in the southern hemisphere were lucky with 1987A, a star that went supernova in one of our small companion galaxies, the Larger Magellanic Cloud.

But. And here’s the but in the midst of all the excitement. The new research is not peer-reviewed, which means something in science. The researchers say that Betelgeuse has reached the end of the line in star life — the burning of its core. Other scientists disagree. Also it is at the end of the day, as vague as all the other predictions.

Could be tomorrow, could be whenever. And then there’s the “could have already happened but when will we know”. The light from our sun takes eight minutes to reach us. Betelgeuse is 642 light years away from us. So if Betelgeuse went supernova yesterday, we would only know 642 years from today. And so it goes. Basically, our best shot is that Betelgeuse went supernova 642 years ago today.

Then up comes the story in a very reputed Indian journal which confuses The Great Dimming and the rumours of 2019 with the new non-peer reviewed research of 2023. And thus repeats the old story of 2019 as the reason for the expected supernova.  

I understand why the media gets frustrated. The editor tells you “give me something big”. So a supernova is a good way to go. Or you want to a prominent byline and you know your editor is a gullible fool. I just read something in a British newspaper — not a Harry-Meghan type tabloid even — that made my brain go supernova. Aliens “might” use a recent supernova in the Pinwheel Galaxy to communicate with earth.

The Pinwheel Galaxy (Messier 101) is 20.87 million light years from earth. I leave you to work out the maths. The aliens sent us a message 20.87 million earth years ago. We get it now. Then we reply. We have no technology that covers even at the speed of light such distances. So some millions of earth years later our signal reaches these aliens. Then they visit us to colonise us. Some more millions of earth years later. And so on. What fun it will be for whatever’s happening on the planet then.

For non-science people, the scale of the cosmos, the distance equals time issue, these are not easy to grasp. It takes effort. You look up at the night sky; you’re looking at the past. You look at the sun — you shouldn’t, except at sunrise and sunset — and you’re looking at eight minutes ago. It’s fascinating and sends a shiver down your back.

The small part we play in the cosmos should come back to us, as we look up. Carl Sagan’s words resonate: “Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged place in the Universe are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.”

I have spent my life staring at Betelgeuse, no matter how I mispronounced it. I would love to watch it go supernova. To see the constellation of Orion changed forever. Even though I know there is no constellation and it is all perspective.

And in case anyone gets worried, the Sun will not go supernova. It is too small, below the Chandrasekhar limit. But do get worried. In about four or five billion years, it will become a red giant and expand up to the surface of earth scorching everything. Obviously, it will gobble up Mercury and Venus. Around the same time, the Milky Way will merge with Andromeda.

Meanwhile, those aliens in the Pinwheel Galaxy might still be sending us messages.

My next prediction for science “journalism”: Will Earth be swallowed by a passing black hole?

If we’re lucky, that might also be an end to bad journalism.