A “once-in-a-lifetime” cosmic explosion is likely this summer, NASA says. Here’s what to know.

People are likely to see a rare burst of light from a dead star on it Earth this summer in a fleeting but potentially sharp celestial display that scientists are calling a “once-in-a-lifetime event.”

The technical term for an impending cosmic explosion is a nova, which occurs when a white dwarf suddenly and often conspicuously lights up the night sky. A “white dwarf” is how astronomers describe a star at the end of its life cycle, after it has used up all its nuclear fuel and is left with only its core. Unlike a supernova — another solar phenomenon visible from Earth when a star effectively explodes — a nova instead refers to a dramatic outpouring of material that a white dwarf has accumulated over time from a younger star in its close proximity.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event that will create a lot of new astronomers and give young people a space event that they can observe for themselves, ask their own questions and collect their own data,” said Rebekah Hounsell, Goddard Space Flight Associate Scientist The NASA Center, which specializes in nova events, said in a statement. “It will drive the next generation of scientists.”

Between now and September, scientists expect a nova in the Corona Borealis, or Northern Corona Milky Way sends lightning so strong to space that it can be witnessed with the naked eye, NASA announced recently. It materializes in a dark spot in the constellation where violent interactions between a white dwarf and a red giant culminate in this massive explosion.

A red giant is a dying star in the final stages of its life cycle, becoming increasingly turbulent as it expands and periodically ejects material from its outer layers in intense episodes.

Known together as T Coronae Borealis, also called the “Blaze Star,” the white dwarf and red giant, predicted to go nova this summer, form a binary star system in the Northern Corona, located about 3,000 light-years from Earth. The red giant in the pair is constantly being stripped of hydrogen as it continues on its path to total collapse, while the nearby white dwarf pulls this material into its own orbit, according to NASA. The hydrogen sucked out of the red giant accumulates on the surface of the white dwarf for many decades, until the heat and pressure build up to the point of causing a full-blown thermonuclear explosion.

The explosion, similar in appearance to a nuclear bomb, clears the dead star the excess material. The flare will likely be visible on Earth for about a week before it disappears again, but both the white dwarf and the red giant in the Blaze Star system will still be intact whenever it disappears. At this point, the process of hydrogen accretion between the two stars will restart and continue until the accumulation of material on the white dwarf next reaches its threshold and suddenly explodes.

Different binary systems like T Coronae Borealis go through this cycle at different rates. A Blaze Star typically goes nova roughly every 80 years.

“There are a few recurring novae with very short cycles, but we don’t usually see repeated flares very often in human lifetimes, and rarely ones that are relatively close to our own system,” Hounsell said. “It’s incredibly exciting to have this front row seat.”

When the nova in T Coronae Borealis finally appears, it will be the first of the pair seen on Earth since 1946, according to NASA. The agency advised aspiring stargazers to look for the Northern Corona on clear nights, which it describes as “a horseshoe-shaped curve of stars west of the constellation Hercules”. NASA has also urged citizens to observe the phenomenon as best they can, although its own scientists will study the nova at its peak and throughout its decline.

“But it’s just as important to get the data during the early rise to the eruption,” Hounsell said, “so the data collected by those passionate citizen scientists now searching for the nova will add dramatically to our findings.”