Can you set time in the future to cause a Star to explode?

[LIONMAN]

Hello again guys ive one small question im not good about setting the time to the future. Is it possible to move the time forward to see a star like Betelgeuse explode for example?
Phil

[selden]

Phil,

There are ways to persuade Celestia to show far future dates, but someone would have to write an Addon which shows an appropriate explosion. Celestia won't do it by itself.

The "set time" menu item is restricted to 4 digit years in the Windows version of Celestia. I don't know what the limitations might be for MacOS or Linux.

You can use the "speed up time" keyboard command -- type a lower case L (l) several times -- to run time into the far future, but only to a maximum of 2,000,000,000 years. (The Sun is expected to expand to become a Red Giant in about 5,000,000,000 years.)

[LIONMAN]

Hi thanks for the info I saw a pic in an article on Betelgeuse somewere showing what it may be like when it explodes and it said the picture was from celestia thats why I was wondering cheers
P

[selden]

That probably was taken from Activity 6 of the Educational Addons.
See http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catal ... tional.php

[thepyratecaptain]

I have managed to simulate a supernova, but remeber the explosion itself takes quite a while. My simulation shows a star casting off its outer shell, and X-ray bursts leaving in 6 directions.