Heads Up, NASA Says A Rare Exploding Star Nova Will Be A Once-In-A-Lifetime Spectacle

As many are looking forward to next month’s total solar eclipse, NASA says the spectacle is not the only celestial event to keep a watch out for in the coming weeks and months—a once in a lifetime event (for most people) is expected to occur. For the first time in nearly 80 years, a star system located 3,000 light-years from Earth will appear in the night sky following a nova outburst.

The nova, which will look like a bright “new” star, is expected to appear in the night sky between now and September, 2024. The event will take place in the constellation Corona Borealis, or the Northern Crown. According to NASA, T Corona Borealis, or T CrB, last exploded in 1946. Once the explosion happens, its normal magnitude of +10 will jump to magnitude +2, making it visible to the naked eye. NASA suggests to become familiar with the constellation, a small, semicircular arc near Bootes and Hércules, ahead of the event. By doing so, it will aid in being able to detect the “new” star. The nova explosion will have a similar brightness to the North Star, Polaris.

Binary system T CrB comprises a white dwarf star and a red giant. The stars are close enough to one another that as the red giant becomes unstable from increasing temperatures and pressure, it ejects its outer layers. The white dwarf then collects the matter being released by the red giant onto its surface. As this occurs, the shallow dense atmosphere of the white dwarf heats up enough to “cause a runaway thermonuclear reaction, which in turn produces the nova that will be seen from Earth.
Jonathan Blazek, an assistant professor of physics at Northeastern University, explained, “There’s a broad class of these sorts of events, and they typically share the trait of having two objects, or sometimes more than two objects, close to each other, and you’re transferring mass from one to the other.” He added, “Eventually, you build up enough mass on usually the hotter object that it ignites, in this case undergoing fusion, and then suddenly you get a very rapid release of energy so it gets much, much brighter.”

While NASA and astrophysicists will monitor the nova explosion to gain a better understanding of what events such as this are, for most, simply being able to view a once in a lifetime event such as this will be more than enough.