It will be visible to everyone.. The Earth is on a date with a cosmic explosion that “occurs once in a lifetime.”

This event, known as NOVA, will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe the sky for those living in the Northern Hemisphere, according to NASA, because the types of star systems in which such explosions occur are not common in the galaxy.
According to “NBC News,” the stellar explosion will occur in a system called “T Coronae Borealis,” which is 3,000 light-years away from Earth, and contains two stars. A dead star, known as a “white dwarf,” orbits around it. A “red giant” star.

Red giant stars are dying stars, as the hydrogen fuel in their cores is exhausted. According to NASA, this is what the sun will eventually turn into.

Why does the explosion happen?

According to the American network, in systems such as “T Coronae Borealis”, the two stars are usually very close to each other, to the point that hydrogen fuel from the “red giant” constantly flows on the surface of the “white dwarf”, and over time, this leads to an increase in pressure and heat, and eventually an explosion.

Bradley Schaefer, professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University, said: “As hydrogen fuel accumulates on the surface of the white dwarf, heating increases and higher and higher pressure occurs until the explosion.”

Schaefer likened the “nova” explosion to a hydrogen bomb exploding in space, adding that the resulting fireball would be able to be seen by people from Earth.

A nova explosion is different from a supernova explosion, which occurs when a massive star collapses and dies.

“At the peak of the eruption, the eruption should be visible to the naked eye, and it will be bright in the sky, so it is easy to see from the backyard,” Schaefer said.

When will it happen?

Astronomers expect that the nova explosion could occur any time between now and next September.

Schiffer stated that the last time this star system exploded was in 1946, and it is likely that another eruption will not occur for 80 years or so.

Astronomers around the world are keen to monitor activity in the “T Coronae Borealis” system, as Schiffer says that once the explosion is discovered, the best and brightest scenes will likely come within 24 hours, pointing out that it will reach approximately the same brightness as the “North Star”, and it may The explosion remains visible to the naked eye for a few days, before it begins to fade.

Even after it fades, sky watchers will likely still be able to see the explosion for about a week using binoculars, according to NASA.

In research published last year in the academic journal “History of Astronomy,” Schaefer discovered two long-lost explosions in the T Corona Borealis system, one of which was documented by German monks in 1217, and the other was witnessed by the English astronomer Francis Wollaston in 1787.

Schaefer said that these monks near Augsburg, Germany, did not know what this was at the time, but they highlighted the explosion as one of the two most important events of the year, and called it in Latin “signum mirabile,” which translates to “good omen,” as it was He thinks it’s a good sign.