Betelgeuse has lost about 15% of its size in the past 15 or so years, and its surface is highly unstable. Some believe that its about to go super nova (if it hasn't already)....even if Betelgeuse is around in the 30th Century
I looked online. And, according to
Wikipedia, Betelgeuse is a variable star, whose luminosity oscillates by about 30%. It has probably 'pulsated' so, for
10 million years, and will likely do so, for
a million years more.
From the definition of stellar 'Habitable Zone (HZ)'; and, from Newtonian gravity applied to presumed planets on simple circular orbits; then, w.h.t.:
d2 = l
t2 = l3/2 / mwhere the lower-case letters denote the star-in-question's relevant parameters (HZ radius, luminosity, mass), in 'solar normalized' numbers. Now,
Betelgeuse, in relative-to-our-sun units, is, on average, shines at ~
160,000 Lsun, and masses ~
20 Msun. Thus, the circum-stellar HZ of Betelgeuse resides way out at a distance of
~400 AU, where the orbital period is
~1800 years. Note, though, that "most of the star's radiant energy occurs in the infrared, and huge amounts are absorbed by circumstellar matter", masking & muting much of Betelgeuse's brightness. Thus, 'in practice', Betelgeuse's HZ could be closer to the star. Also, the star "is a slow rotator", taking
~30 years to spin on its axis -- so that, compared to the sun-earth system, 'everything happens in slow motion' (star spin, planet orbit,
etc.).
Now, the in-game-universe human-colonized world has "over 20 commercial factory complexes in the northern hemisphere producing over 30 percent of all Capellan consumer and luxury goods"
(ISA). And, the world's still-surviving native life-forms are primarily marine animals
(Sarna). Perhaps, then, that world -- the main production site, for the
Vindicator 'mech -- has a large southern ocean, which helps moderate its climate.
Also, if the Jump Point is 2 days from the planet, then, at standard 1 G burn, that point lies only
1/2 AU from the world. Thus, the Jump Point must be a 'pirate point', designed to avoid the erratic central star, and its surrounding shroud of shifting circum-stellar plasmas, which extend out to
~40 AU, or
~10% of the way to the human-inhabited world:
Note, though, that the
Wikipedia article says Betelgeuse may have some faint companion stars. Perhaps Betelgeuse has a to-be-detected 'Brown Dwarf' companion, out at ~
400 AU, with a couple of planets orbiting it, something like the inhabited moon 'Pandora', in the movie
Avatar ??
For sake of visualization, computing the angular size of the central star, using the above formulae, w.h.t., in solar-normalized units:
theta = r / d = r / l1/2So, for the Betelgeuse system, whose central star has a radius of
1200 Rsun, and a HZ out at
400 AU, the red-giant star, alone, would appear to be about
3x bigger than our sun, as seen from earth, or about
1.5 degrees (~2 finger-widths, at arms' length). The surrounding shell of glowing plasmas would be about
20x bigger than our sun-from-earth, or about
10 degrees (a pinky-tip-to-thumb-tip Hawaiian 'hang loose' sign, at arms' length). Days, on world, would be somberly red, a little like a red-light-lit military barracks room, at night, perhaps something like these artistic impressions
(which have been selected, to try to high-light the diffuse, ill-defined 'boundary surface' of the star):
The on-world
Vindicator factory might look like:
