A star is dead?
Keep your eyes skyward, stargazers: NASA predicts that a long-awaited “once-in-a-lifetime” star explosion — or nova — will be visible to the naked eye sometime this summer, according to a recent press release.
“It’s incredibly exciting to have that front-row seat,” said Dr. Rebecca Hounsell, assistant research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Called T Coronae Borealis, or “The Flaming Star,” the celestial event is located 3,000 light-years away and consists of a white dwarf, the “Earth-sized” remnant of a dead star. Meanwhile, the mass of the starburst is similar to that of the Sun.
Also in the mix is ”an ancient red giant that is slowly being stripped of hydrogen by the relentless gravitational pull of its hungry neighbor,” NASA describes.
When enough hydrogen from the red giant accumulates on the white dwarf’s surface, it triggers a massive thermonuclear explosion that shoots the accumulated material into space in a blinding flash. The intergalactic phenomenon should not be confused with a supernova, a similar cosmic burn that destroys some dying stars – instead of keeping them intact like a nova – and is often billions of times brighter than a nova.
In the case of the Blaze Star, this event appears to recur on average every 80 years and may repeat itself for hundreds of thousands of years.
This event is particularly important given its relative proximity to Earth. “There are a few recurring novae with very short cycles, but we don’t typically see frequent recurring outbursts in human lifetimes, and rarely so relatively close to our own system,” Hounsell said.
Unfortunately, the exact date for the interstellar fireworks display is still unknown, but this future Death Star will reportedly be visible sometime this month. NASA estimates that the “brief” phenomenon will be visible to the naked eye for about a week.
Fortunately, amateur astronomers can optimize their chances of catching a glimpse of the fleeting light show by following a few tips.
First, they must initially look toward the Northern Crown, a parabola-shaped constellation located to the west of the constellation Hercules, Fox News reports.
They can then trace a straight line from the two brightest stars in the Northern Hemisphere – Arcturus and Vega – which will take them to the constellation Hercules and Corona Borealis, where the Flame of Glory will be most visible. It will appear that a new star has appeared in the sky.
Unfortunately, “recurring novae are unpredictable,” according to NASA astrophysicist Koji Mukai, adding that just when scientists think they’ve found its pattern, it can “completely deviate from it.”
“We’ll see how T CrB (the scientific name for ‘Blaze Star’) behaves,” he added.
Either way, Hounsell believes the ground-breaking event will “fuel the next generation of scientists.”
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime event that will create many new astronomers, giving young people a cosmic event they can observe for themselves, ask their own questions and collect their own data,” she said.
