A new star will appear in the night sky for the first time in 80 years, making it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see it with the naked eye.
The star, called T Coronae Borealis, or T CrB, is located in the northern hemisphere of the sky 3,000 light years from Earth and is set to explode sometime this year, and the burst will light up the sky like a star for a week.
T CrB will be located in the constellation Corona Borealis, which lies in a semicircular area between the constellations Bootes and Hercules and is expected to shine as bright as the North Star, Polaris.
NASA has not yet shared an exact date for the cosmic display, but predicted it will happen between now and September of this year.
The white dwarf star will emit a Nova explosion between now and September 2024
The star T CrB will be visible from Earth 3,000 light years away and is expected to shine as bright as the North Star.
The star burst is called a nova, which is a short explosion that occurs once every century when a white dwarf star (a collapsed star the size of the Sun) and a red giant star (a dying star that is about 74 times the size ) from the sun – get too close.
Its proximity causes the temperature and pressure on the red giant star to rise from about 4,000 to 5,800 degrees Fahrenheit to more than 360,000 degrees Fahrenheit and causes T CrB to expel its outer layers that accumulate on the surface of the white dwarf planet.
When the red giant’s matter reaches its maximum temperature, it triggers a nuclear reaction that creates an apocalyptic-type explosion that releases between 10,000 and 100,000 times the annual energy output of the sun.
The recurring nova does not destroy the star when it explodes as a supernova would, but rather cools to its initial temperature and resumes the cycle.
The most recent records of the T CrB nova explosion were in 1946 and 1866, but reports indicate that the observations occurred hundreds of years earlier.
According Cornell Universitythe Reverend Francis Wollaston reported observing a star with exactly the same coordinates as T CrB at least four times during a week in 1787.
A report written by Abbott Burchard in 1217 said that he witnessed a rapidly rising star in the Corona Borealis that “shone with great light” and lasted for “many days,” Cornell reported.
It’s not possible that Burchard’s observation was a comment because he described the sight as a ‘Stella,’ another term for a star, according to the report.
Most Nova explosions can last thousands of years, but T CrB is unique because it completes the entire process in just a week.
When Nova explodes, its brightness will peak and “should be visible to the naked eye for several days and just over a week with binoculars before it dims again, possibly for another 80 years.” POT saying.
