An artist's rendering shows the T Coronae Borealis star system, which contains a white dwarf and a red giant. Conceptual Image Lab/Goddard Space Flight Center/NASA hide caption
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Conceptual Image Lab/Goddard Space Flight Center/NASA
An artist's rendering shows the T Coronae Borealis star system, which contains a white dwarf and a red giant.
Conceptual Image Lab/Goddard Space Flight Center/NASA
Space enthusiasts, thank your lucky stars.
Astronomers expect that this year you'll be able to see the explosion of a star system in our Milky Way galaxy by simply looking up at the sky.
Yes, we know you just spent all that time figuring out how to catch the solar eclipse.
But the upcoming nova of the T Coronae Borealis star system is far less common, occurring roughly once every 80 years. A novatakes place when a small star suddenly and dramatically brightens for a short period.
"Seeing that star blow up is much rarer than a solar eclipse," NASA astronomer Bill Cooke told NPR in March. "So it's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing."
T Coronae Borealis is expected to nova at any moment between now and September. Located about 3,000 light years from Earth, the binary star system contains both a white dwarf and a red giant.
As the red giant heats up and its pressure grows, it starts spewing matter that's collected by the white dwarf, according to NASA. The smaller star, roughly the size of Earth, gets so overloaded with that matter that explodes.
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"Eventually it accumulates so much material that literally a thermonuclear reaction starts and the star brightens by hundreds of times. It just gets super bright," Cooke said.
Such an event is called a nova, derived from the Latin for "new star," because a once-dim celestial object suddenly becomes illuminated, giving the impression of a new star.
Dr. Rebekah Hounsell, an assistant research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who specializes in nova events, said in a press release earlier this month that such explosions typically occur on the same star in repeated intervals.
“There are a few recurrent novae with very short cycles, but typically, we don’t often see a repeated outburst in a human lifetime, and rarely one so relatively close to our own system,” said Hounsell.
When the nova occurs, the star system could surge from a +10 magnitude, which can't be seen by the naked eye, to a +2 magnitude, roughly the same level of brightness as the North Star. (Higher positive numbers indicate dimmer stars.)
Astronomers say that once the nova reaches its peak brightness, it will be visible to viewers for several days. Those using binoculars will be able to see it for just over a week before it dims again.
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An outburst of T Coronae Borealis was scientifically observed in 1866, but it may have also been spotted as far back as 1217 by a German monk who documented an object that "shone with great light" for "many days." The star system last exploded in 1946.
Astrophysicists plan to closely observe the impending nova with the hope of better understanding these recurrent phenomena, NASA noted.
Among the tools that will be used to collect data on the eruption are the space agency’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. Some of the technology that’ll be in use, such as gamma-ray imagers, were only developed after the last nova in 1946.
“Typically, nova events are so faint and far away that it’s hard to clearly identify where the erupting energy is concentrated,” said NASA Goddard chief of the Astroparticle Physics Laboratory Elizabeth Hays. “This one will be really close, with a lot of eyes on it, studying the various wavelengths and hopefully giving us data to start unlocking the structure and specific processes involved.”
NASA says the nova will be visible in the constellation Corona Borealis, which is a "small, semicircular arc" located between the constellations Bootes and Hercules.
When you do spot the T Coronae Borealis outburst, think about this: because the star system is so far away, the outburst we'll see will have already occurred about 3,000 years earlier.
"The collapse of the Bronze Age," said Cooke. "You know, the great empires of Egypt, Troy, they were falling apart."
FAQs
In the second half of 2024, a nova explosion in the star system called T Coronae Borealis, or T CrB, will once again be visible to people on Earth. T CrB will appear 1,500 times brighter than usual, but it won't be as spectacular as the event in 1054.
How rare is it to see an exploding star? ›
The nova, a binary system comprising two stars in the constellation Corona Borealis, bursts into view about every 80 years. These nova explosions are not unusual, but T Corona Borealis (TCrB) is close enough and bright enough that it will be visible to the naked eye, which is rarer.
Has anyone ever seen a star explode? ›
Astronomers Watch a Star Die and Then Explode as a Supernova – For the Very First Time. For the first time, astronomers observed a red supergiant star's explosion, revealing surprising pre-explosion behavior. The discovery challenges previous beliefs about how these stars evolve before they collapse.
Will we see a star explode in our lifetime? ›
"There are a few recurrent novas with very short cycles, but typically, we don't often see a repeated outburst in a human lifetime, and rarely one so relatively close to our own system," Dr. Rebekah Hounsell, an assistant research scientist specializing in nova events at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a ...
How to see nova explosion 2024? ›
A cloudless, moonless night will offer the best viewing conditions. "The best time to look by eye will be about one day into the eruption. But the nova will be visible by eye for a few days," Elizabeth Hayes, project scientist for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told CNET.
What star can burn for 100 billion years? ›
A red dwarf, which is half as massive as the sun, can last 80 to 100 billion years, which is far longer than the universe's age of 13.8 billion years. This long lifetime is one reason red dwarfs are considered to be good sources for planets hosting life, because they are stable for such a long time.
Can you hear an exploding star? ›
In space, nobody can hear you scream — or explode, or collapse, or slowly collide with a neighboring galaxy.
What is the rarest star to see? ›
Wolf-Rayet stars are among the rarest and most massive stars in the universe, characterized by their strong stellar winds and extremely high temperatures. These stars have shed much of their hydrogen, exposing the hotter, inner layers that burn heavier elements like carbon and oxygen.
What color is an exploding star? ›
Astronomers at Queen's University Belfast have managed to use these "before" images to directly identify the star that exploded. It appears to be a red supergiant some 10 to 20 times more massive than the Sun, and quite similar to the well-known star Betelguese in Orion.
Have we ever seen a dying star? ›
On the other hand, supernovae have been seen by the naked eye throughout human history. These are the death throes of stars, and are extremely bright. So not only is the light coming from the star just as it dies, but it also might be substantially farther away than most stars.
A 2023 paper predicts that Betelgeuse's core will exhaust its carbon fuel in less than 300 years and that “a core collapse leading to a supernova explosion is expected in a few tens of years.”
Has Earth ever seen a supernova? ›
Supernova 1987A made international news when, in February of 1987, the explosion of a star could be seen on Earth. Before that, the last supernova visible to the naked eye was in 1604.
Is there a supernova in 2024? ›
All signs point to the nova explosion happening in September 2024. However, novas can be unpredictable, so astrophysicists say it's difficult to know exactly when the T CrB nova will occur.
Will Betelgeuse explode in 2024? ›
Then there is Betelgeuse which is expected to end its life with a massive supernova sometime “soon” which in human timescales means within the next 100,000 or even 1,000,000 years.
Are we ever going to see a supernova? ›
Now, looking far beyond the solar system, astronomers have added a solid prediction of an event happening deep in intergalactic space: an image of an exploding star, dubbed Supernova Requiem, which will appear around the year 2037.
What's happening in space in 2024? ›
Two crewed space stations, the International Space Station (ISS) and Tiangong, are in operation in 2024. In terms of crewed missions, the ISS will be visited by Expedition 70, 71, and 72, while Shenzhou 18 and 19 will visit Tiangong. The ISS also hosted the private crew of Axiom Mission 3.
Is it possible for a star to explode? ›
When the pressure drops low enough in a massive star, gravity suddenly takes over and the star collapses in just seconds. This collapse produces the explosion we call a supernova. Supernovae are so powerful they create new atomic nuclei.
Will our star ever go supernova? ›
No supernova, no black hole
Our sun isn't massive enough to trigger a stellar explosion, called a supernova, when it dies, and it will never become a black hole either. In order to create a supernova, a star needs about 10 times the mass of our sun.
