Astronomers say new 'star' due to appear in night sky is 'late to the party'
Hurry up and wait. A new star is coming to the night sky -- soon(ish). Astronomers expect the Nova explosion within the binary star system known as T Coronae Borealis, or T CrB, to happen between now and the end of the year.
What the nova explosion looks like in space
This NASA animation shows gamma rays (magenta) arise when accelerated particles in the explosion's shock wave crash into the red giant's stellar wind.
Skygazers are still waiting for the celestial event of the year, when a dance between two stars 3,000 light-years away ends in a massive explosion and creates a new dazzling temporary "star" in the sky.
However, anyone hoping to schedule a time to observe this event, known as a Nova explosion or outburst, should prepare for disappointment. That is because there is no exact date for its occurrence.
Astronomers expect the Nova explosion within the binary star system known as T Coronae Borealis, or T CrB, to happen between now and the end of the year.
Lowell Observatory Director of Science Gerard van Belle in Arizona said astronomers know this event will unfold in the night sky soon(ish) because it has happened before and is so bright it can be seen with the naked eye. The last time this explosion was observed was in 1946.
"This object has been seen to do this throughout history every 78-ish years or so, and the problem is that there's some wiggle room on that of many months," van Belle said.
A red giant star and white dwarf orbit each other in this animation of a nova. The red giant is a large sphere in shades of red, orange, and white, with the side facing the white dwarf the lightest shades. The animation opens with the red giant on the right side of the screen, co-orbiting the white dwarf. When the red giant moves behind the white dwarf, a nova explosion on the white dwarf ignites, filling the screen with white light. After the light fades, a ball of ejected nova material is shown in pale orange. A small white spot remains after the fog of material clears, indicating that the white dwarf has survived the explosion. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Unlike other astronomical events we can see, like a planet conjunction or a lunar eclipse, this one is happening thousands of light years away and is rare enough that the timing is not an exact science, yet. Although some scientists have been trying to predict the window of time.
T CrB was expected to explode last year, but it hasn’t happened yet.
A nova explosion occurs when one white dwarf star orbits a red giant star, blowing off mass. Hydrogen falling onto the white dwarf accumulates over time, in this case, over about 80 years.
"We're just basically now at the point where this thing is late to the party," van Belle said. "I expect what is happening out there in the depths of space is that the one bigger star continues to puff off gas and have it drop on its little buddy that's collecting and collecting and collecting it, until finally it's going to pop off in a nuclear explosion."
There is good news, but it’s really only a positive for future generations.
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"We'll have one more entry in the ledger that lets us know with some more confidence next time around, when my grandkids are doing this," van Belle said. "You only get a data point every 80-ish years. And so you have to be kind of playing the long game here. It's like building cathedrals."
When T CrB does explode, it will look like a very bright star in the night sky in the Corona Borealis constellation. People around the world will be able to track its brightness, providing better forecasting for the next nova explosion.
A conceptual image of how to find Hercules and his mighty globular clusters in the sky created using a planetarium software. Credit: NASA
(NASA)
"In what way does it brighten up? Does it brighten up, and then kind of dim off in a very gradual way, or flip that around? Is it kind of brighten up and then wink out. Those sorts of things are going to tell us about the actual explosion event itself," van Belle said.
The bad news is that the later into the year we get, it becomes possible that the explosion could be blocked as it gets closer and closer to falling behind our solar system’s Sun.
In the meantime, hurry up and wait – a new "star" is coming.