Earthlings will most likely witness a brief but striking celestial show that is a once-in-a-lifetime event.
The term for the impending cosmic light show is a nova, which happens when a white dwarf suddenly brightens the night sky. The burst of light is caused by the expulsion of matter stored by a dead star.
A star approaching the end of its life, with just the core remaining after it has used all of its nuclear fuel, is referred to as a “white dwarf.”
According to NASA, experts predict that sometime between now and September, a nova in the Milky Way’s Corona Borealis will produce a light so bright that it can be seen with the naked eye. The nova will emerge in a dark part of the constellation, where a collision between a white dwarf and a red giant is predicted to cause a massive explosion.
A star that is almost done with its life cycle is called a red giant. It becomes increasingly unstable as it expands and sheds intense bursts of material being ejected from its outer layers.
The Northern Crown is made up of red giant and white dwarf stars, (called a binary star system) and it is situated around 3,000 light-years from Earth. It is frequently referred to as T Coronae Borealis, or the “Blaze Star.”
According to NASA, as this coupling moves closer to complete collapse, the red giant is continuously losing hydrogen while the surrounding white dwarf draws that material into its own orbit. Over several decades, the hydrogen that is extracted from the red giant builds up on the surface of the white dwarf, causing heat and pressure to build up to the point when a full-blown thermonuclear explosion is triggered.
The explosion, which resembles a nuclear bomb, eliminates that excess material from the dead star. The red giant and white dwarf stars in the Blaze Star system should continue to exist during the explosion’s almost week-long duration before it fades away from Earth. After that, the process of hydrogen building between the two stars will recommence and continue until the white dwarf reaches a certain point in its material accumulation and erupts once more.
Different binary systems go through this cycle at different speeds, including T Coronae Borealis. The Blaze Star often erupts in a nova every 80 years or so.
