Dear Skywatchers,

Astronomers and amateur skywatchers have their telescopes aimed at Betelgeuse, the second brightest star in the Orion constellation. And they’ve noticed it’s been dimming. And they think that might mean it will explode–turn into a supernova–any day now.

Or, they say, it could take another 100,000 years. We can’t really tell because we live our lives on human time. The universe is bigger, longer, and slower than we can even imagine.

We’ve been pointing our telescopes into the heavens for the last 500 years, but that’s hardly a nanosecond in the universe’s. Who knows what kind of changes the star has undergone in its long history?

All we can do is keep watching and keep waiting.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck