‘Single’ nova explosion to add new star to night sky in dazzling spectacle: NASA

US News

According to Patrick Reilly

Scientists around the world are anxiously awaiting the cosmic nova event, which NASA says will add a “new star” to the night sky sometime between today and September.

The spectacle will be so bright that it will be visible to the naked eye.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event that will create lots of new astronomers and give young people a cosmic event to observe for themselves, ask their own questions and collect their own data,” said Dr. Rebekah Hounsell, associate scientist specializing in nova events at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“It will drive the next generation of scientists,” she added.

T Coronae Borealis – nicknamed the “Blaze Star” and simply known to astronomers as “T CrB” – is a small binary star system located in the Northern Corona of the Milky Way about 3,000 light-years from Earth, between the constellations Boötes and Hercules.

It consists of a white dwarf—a dead star only the size of Earth, but with an incredible mass equal to that of our Sun—that NASA says is slowly tearing hydrogen from an ancient red giant.

About every 80 years, hydrogen from a red giant accumulates on the white dwarf’s surface and eventually ignites a violent thermonuclear explosion that spews the hydrogen back into space in a fantastic light show.

The light show will appear to onlookers on Earth as if a new star has appeared in the sky.

The last nova at T CrB was in 1946. The first sighting was recorded more than 800 years ago by Abbott in Germany, who spotted “a faint star that shone brightly for some time,” according to NASA.

“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.”

Hounsell said the nova event should not be confused with the more familiar “supernova,” when a massive star dramatically explodes and destroys itself at the end of its life. In a nova, the dwarf star remains intact, but the accreted material flies through space in a blinding flash.

For a short week, stargazers can see the eruption with the naked eye, which is sure to amaze viewers around the world.

At its peak, it will look like a new star has appeared.

While it’s possible that a nova could occur after September, the binary system has recently shown similar behavior to that seen before the 1946 event — leading scientists to predict that it will occur by the end of summer or shortly thereafter.