Is the puzzling star Betelgeuse going to explode in our lifetime after all?

A bright yellow star, shining rays spiked on its sides to from a small "+", hangs in the center of a rich, dark blue, almost black sky. Fainter stars are sprinkled throughout.

A new unpublished study is making waves on the internet by claiming that one of the brightest stars in the night sky might die in a spectacular explosion within our lifetime. 

The study, currently available on the online pre-print serverarXiv, conjectures that the red giant star Betelgeuse, the left shoulder of the constellation Orion also known as Alpha Orionis, may have less than three hundred years' worth of fuel left in its core. When the star burns through those last drops, its core will collapse into a black hole and in the process blast out the star's outer layers at enormous speeds of up to 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) per second. This fiery demise is what astronomers call a supernova explosion, and in the case of Betelgeuse, it will be a spectacular sight for observers on Earth. Since the star is only 650 light-years from Earth, those layers of gas and dust will shine as bright as the full moon in our sky for several weeks.