After the buzz of the eclipse took over back in April, there’s a new phenomenon to keep your eyes peeled for this year.
A ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ event is expected to take place anytime between now and September where a new star will be created in the night sky.
While a supernova is the explosion of a dead star, a nova is the sudden explosion from a collapsed star, known as a white dwarf, which is what will happen in the night sky this summer.
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The spectacle, known as T Coronae Borealis, is a recurring event that last happened in 1946.
When the collapsed star collides with the Corona Borealis constellation, it will cause an explosion of light.
This means that the star system, which is 3,000 lightyears away, will become visible to the naked eye for several days and potentially visible for a week with binoculars.
Dr. Rebekah Hounsell, an assistant research scientist specializing in nova events at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement: “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event that will create a lot of new astronomers out there, giving young people a cosmic event they can observe for themselves, ask their own questions, and collect their own data.
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“It’ll fuel the next generation of scientists.”
If you’re wondering how you can spot this explosive event, there is a bit of a time window where it could happen anytime from now until September but it will occur in the Northern Crown constellation, located between the Boötes and Hercules constellations.
The nova will appear in an arc between Boötes and Hercules, and will be visible from the Northern Hemisphere.
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This event only happens once every 80 years, with its first recording unbelievably taking place in the 13th century.
In 1217, a German monk recorded a “faint star that for a time shone with great light”.
Sharing their interest in the upcoming spectacle on Reddit, one user said: “I wish I could watch this up close without dying.”
While another commenter asked: “Hasn’t this event already taken place and we are just waiting for the light generated from the event to reach us?”
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Quick to reply, someone responded with: “Yes and no. To us it hasn’t happened till we see it. The speed of light is the speed of causality. For the star it may have already happened. There is no universal reference frame. All are equal.”
So keep an eye on the night sky this summer as you may just spot this once-in-a-lifetime event.