In what’s called a “once-in-a-lifetime event,” light from a star’s thermonuclear explosion takes thousands of years to travel to Earth and will be here every day.
T Coronae Borealis (also known as T Cor Bor, T CrB and Blaze Star) will be as bright as the North Star (for those in the Northern Hemisphere).
Dr Laura Driessen from the University of Sydney’s School of Physics said the Blaze Star would be as bright as Orion’s right leg to those in the southern hemisphere.
A recurring T CrB nova becomes visible roughly every 80 years after a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of a white dwarf about 3,000 light-years away.
The dwarf sucks in hydrogen from a neighboring red giant, causing a build-up of pressure and heat that eventually triggers an explosion.
It is expected to be visible anytime between now and September.
There is a dark spot in the Corona Borealis. Astronomers and non-astronomers everywhere watch for this spot where a “new” star appears. It will remain visible to the naked eye for about a week.
NASA called it a “once-in-a-lifetime event.”
Driessen said the two stars are close enough that the gravitational pull causes the white dwarf to suck up material.
“It’s a binary system and every now and then it explodes, so it’s a nova,” she said.
“When we think of a nova, we often think of a supernova, which is when they explode at the end of their life… there’s no going back. But a nova has a smaller surface explosion based on this accretion, this accretion of material.”
The first recorded sighting of the Blaze Star was in 1217, when an abbot of Ursberg, Germany, saw “a faint star that shone for a time with a great light,” says NASA.
He was last seen in 1946.
Driessen said the star is always variable, getting brighter and dimmer. But about 10 years before the explosion, it starts to get a bit brighter before fading again in the months before the explosion.
“It won’t actually be like a watch, it will be related to the accumulation of material. So it’s not an exact number, but we got this early warning,” she said.
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Although this spectacular phenomenon has been observed before, Driessen said this is the first time it will be studied using modern technology.
“That’s why it’s so exciting. It will be the first to get the information that we have access to now, we have all these telescopes that we didn’t have 80 years ago,” she said.
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Very Large Array National Radio Astronomy Observatory in New Mexico are just some of the instruments that will track Blaze.
Fermi project scientist Dr. Elizabeth Hays, who is also the head of NASA’s Astroparticle Physics Laboratory, said typical nova events are far away.
“This one is going to be really close, it’s going to be looked at a lot, it’s going to be studied at different wavelengths, and hopefully it’s going to give us the data to start unlocking the structure and the specific processes involved,” she said.
“We can’t wait to get a full picture of what’s going on.”
NASA has a map of the Corona Borealis to help people determine where to look, and Driessen said software like Stellarium is also helpful. There are several free apps for viewing night sky maps.
Driessen said people should find the darkest area as far away from a city or town as possible and bring binoculars for an even better view.
“Let your eyes get used to the dark,” she said. “And it’s good to have a red torch. Put some cellophane over it so it doesn’t ruin your night vision. And don’t look at your phone.”