See the birth of a new STAR: Once-in-a-lifetime ‘Blaze Star’ will ignite in the night sky ‘any day now’ – here’s how to spot it
If you’re into stargazing, make sure you keep an eye on the sky in the coming weeks.
You will soon have a rare opportunity to see a new star being born in the sky.
The ‘flaming star’ T Coronae Borealis will now come to life any day, going from invisible to as bright as the North Star in a spectacular nova.
Once the nova appears, it will be visible to the naked eye for a few days before disappearing for another 80 years.
Dr. Rebekah Hounsell, a NASA expert on nova, said: ‘There are a few recurring novas with very short cycles, but typically we don’t see a repeat eruption very often in a lifetime, and rarely one so relatively close to ours. is. system.’
Dr. Hounsell adds that this is a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity to get front-row seats to a truly special cosmic event.
Unfortunately, astronomers have not been able to determine exactly when it will come into view.
However, Lord Martin Rees, the current Astronomer Royal and former President of the Royal Society and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge University, told The Telegraph that it could be any day now, adding that it may be “a little too late.”
If you’re into stargazing, make sure you keep an eye on the sky in the coming weeks. You will soon have a rare opportunity to see a new star being born in the sky
Stargazers get a unique opportunity to watch the birth of a new star as the ‘Blaze Star’ T Coronae Borealis comes to life (artist’s impression)
To discover this unique phenomenon, all you have to do is look to the northeast on a dark, clear night.
The blazing star will appear in a faint constellation called the Northern Crown, or Corona Borealis, between the constellations Boötes and Hercules.
But if this is difficult to spot, there is a method to narrow your search using some of the brighter stars in the sky.
First look for the Big Dipper, also called the saucepan or plough, and follow the curve of its ‘handle’ until you find a bright reddish star above the eastern horizon.
From that star, called Arcturus, look northeast at the same level and you should see another bright star called Vega.
Halfway between these two you can find a faint swirl of seven stars – this is the Northern Crown where the Blaze Star will appear.
Of course, it will be a lot easier to find the constellation once the flaming star has appeared, as it should be one of the brightest in the sky.
For the best viewing conditions, make sure you stay far away from light sources that could spoil your vision.
To find the start, look for the constellation Corona Borealis, which is located between Hercules and Bootes in the northeast
That might mean moving away from city lights whenever possible and avoiding your flashlight as your eyes adjust to the darkness.
The star is visible with the naked eye, but you can see more if you use binoculars or a small telescope.
There’s no way to know exactly when the star will come to life, and even scientists are eagerly awaiting signs of activity.
It is predicted that T Coronae Borealis should appear sometime between now and September, but that could happen any day.
Although the term ‘nova’ comes from the Latin for ‘new star’, in reality it will only appear that a new star has been created.
In reality, we will see the moment when a very faint star 3,000 light-years from Earth suddenly brightens.
T Coronae Borealis is a binary system nestled in the Northern Crown constellation, meaning it consists of two stars orbiting each other.
One of those stars is a huge but cool red giant, while the other is a white dwarf: a hot, dense remnant of a dead star, about the size of Earth but with the same mass as our Sun.
To find the star, follow the handle of the Big Dipper (pictured here from the Northern Hemisphere) and look for a reddish star called Arcturus. The blazing star should appear halfway between this star and another bright star to the northeast called Vega
T Coronae Borealis is a binary system, meaning it actually consists of two stars orbiting each other (artist’s impression)
As these stars spin, the white dwarf slowly devours its neighbor, removing the hydrogen from its atmosphere.
As this hydrogen builds up around the white dwarf, it builds up enormous pressure and heat.
When enough matter falls into the star at once, it causes a huge thermonuclear explosion, so bright we can see it from Earth, blowing away the built-up material.
But unlike a supernova, which happens when a star dies, the white dwarf remains intact so the process can begin again.
Because this build-up takes about 80 years, T Coronae Borealis flares on a regular cycle, making it a recurring nova.
The first time the star was noticed was more than 800 years ago, in 1217, when a man named Burchard, Abbot of Ursberg, Germany, “saw a faint star shining for a time with great light.”
This is also how scientists know the star is about to burn again, as it follows the same pattern as in 1866 and 1947.
In those cases, the star first brightened before suddenly fading in anticipation of the Big Bang.
Scientists have been seeing T Coronae Borealis getting brighter again since 2015, until it suddenly turned darker in March last year.
When the wind finally blows, it can become up to 600 times brighter based on these previous outbursts.
Because T Coronae Borealis is quite close to Earth and flares up regularly, it is also a great opportunity for scientists to learn more about novae.
The nova will be closely watched by scientists around the world using the James Webb Space Telescope, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and many others.
Dr. Elizabeth Hays, head of the particle physics laboratory at NASA Goddard, says this means the help of amateur stargazers will be crucial to capture the first moments of the explosion.
“We will observe the nova event at its peak and during its decay, as the visible energy of the eruption fades,” she said.
‘But it is just as important to obtain data during the early rise to the eruption – so the data collected by those enthusiastic citizen scientists now searching for the nova will dramatically contribute to our findings.’