A retrospective look at Sirius B in its red supergiant phase

I bet you think we’ve seen just about everything Sirius has to offer.
(think again)
http://www.cosmicastronomy.com/oscillat.htm#sirius

Red giant stars are many, and yet remain a little hard to come by, as
only a few public images of whatever is within 1000 light years seem
to exist that fit within the bloated size and color saturated eye-
candy profiles that we’ve been taught to accept. However, the visible
spectrum is extremely limited as to what is otherwise technically
accessible from just above and below our genetically limited and thus
inferior visual spectrum. (seems entirely odd that our human evolution
was rather careless in having discarded so much visual capability, in
that other creatures seem to have a far wider visual spectrum
capability that includes some UV and IR without any applied
technology)

“Red Giant Star Found to Have Massive Tail” The obvious bow-wave
proves that even 64 km/s is pushing towards the intergalactic terminal
velocity of stellar motion for items of this volumetric size.
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Red_G...l_077 84.html
Mira_A of 1.2 M solar mass and several hundred solar radii (UV
colorized as bluish): “A dying star situated 400 light years away from
us exhibits an unusual and massive tail of heated gas that spreads for
more than 13 light years.” Trekking it’s way through space at a rogue
velocity of 64 km/s none the less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/galex/20070815/a.html

Sirius B could have been much like an image of Mira A, except a whole
lot larger (5001000 solar radii), as viewed in visible and near IR as
that of a red supergiant star.
http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm...aab_v2_col.pdf

Mira A and lots more composite observationology from FAS
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/docs/rst/Sect20/A6.html

There are many possibilities, as for how Sirius B used to function as
a truly massive (9 solar mass) star, thereby extremely hot and fast
burning prior to becoming a red supergiant, creating an impressive
planetary nebula phase before ending as the little white dwarf. For
all we know Sirius B was even a variable kind of red giant and then
perhaps a slow nova flashover phase prior to finishing off as the
white dwarf.

These following examples are probably similar or perhaps representing
a slightly smaller version of what the Sirius star/solar system looked
like once Sirius B had started turning itself from an impressive red
supergiant into a white dwarf of perhaps 1/8th its original mass,
taking roughly 64~96,000 years for this explosive mass shedding phase
to happen. A few tens of billions of years later is when such a white
dwarf eventually becomes a black dwarf, kind of black diamond spent
star, in that our universe may or may not be quite old enough to
display such examples.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_nebula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_Nebula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_Eye_Nebula
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap031207.html
http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/index6.html

Betelgeuse has been a massive red giant at 20+ fold the mass of our
sun, and likely worth somewhat better than two fold the mass of the
original Sirius B, as Betelgeuse currently having expanded to 1000
solar radii and growing, it'll certainly become a truly impressive
nova whenever it transforms into a white dwarf that’s nearly the size
of Saturn.

The soon to be renewed and improved Hubble should accomplish the
improved spectrum, resolution and several extra DB in dynamic range of
imaging most everything, along with other existing and soon to be
deployed telescopes should give us even better composite examples of
what Sirius B used to look like. This may give some of us a better
interpretation as to what transpired right next door to us, as well as
having unavoidably contributed to some of what our solar system has to
offer.

Perhaps there’s too much information about the Sirius star/solar
system for the public to grasp without causing more faith-based harm
than good.
http://www.cosmicastronomy.com/oscillat.htm#sirius

~ BG