Two Suns Coming to a Planet Near You!

Every once in a while, crankyjewishguy (CJG) stumbles upon a headline and says to himself, because no one else ever listens to him, "that simply can't be true." For example, the other day he came upon a story that said the Earth could one day have two suns. OK, CJG buys that. Maybe in the year 58,675, when everyone now on Earth will long since be dead (with the possible exception of Joan Rivers), there will be some cataclysmic astronomical event, and whatever life forms survived the epoch when all the water boiled away because of global warming will gaze into the sky and see two suns. That strikes CJG as eminently plausible. But this news story said that the Earth could have two suns as soon as 2012. CJG checked his calendar and suddenly realized, that's next year! Holy shit! Really? CJG would like to see that!

CJG knows an opportunity when he sees one and he immediately got on eTrade and bought a ton of Coppertone stock. Then he traded in his old Volvo and bought a little convertible. Then he came home and read the article and discovered that the story was hyped a little bit. CJG is no Stephen Hawking, so his summary may be a little rough, but here it is.

One of the brightest stars in the night sky is called Betelgeuse and it's collapsing. When it does, one of two things will happen. It will become a black hole and suck the Earth and maybe the entire solar system into it in which case CJG hopes everyone is wearing a seat belt, or, it will explode and become a super-nova in which case it would be bright enough to appear, for a few weeks, as a second sun. A few weeks? So, back to eTrade to sell all the Coppertone stock and back to the car dealer to try and return the convertible.

Betelgeuse, the ninth brightest star in the galaxy.

But all this begs an interesting theological question. Since the Jewish sabbath begins at sundown on Friday, would both suns have to set? Or just the real one? CJG thought maybe we could look to Jewish communities north of the Arctic Circle for the answer since there's no sunset at all up there for good parts of the year. Then he remembered -- Jews can't survive north of the Arctic Circle. In fact, few can survive north of Boca.

CJG thinks headline writers are like salesman. They draw you in with a promise too good to be true and then disappoint you. But here's the real mystery, if this isn't going to happen until at least 2012, how did they get this picture?