A unique burst of light from a dead star will be visible from Earth, in what scientists have called “a once-in-a-lifetime event.”
Between June and September, according to NASA, the event will take place, which will manifest itself in a constellation of the Milky Way.
The stars that will cause this phenomenon are a white dwarf and a red giant, known together as T Coronae Borealis or the “Titan Star”, a binary system located approximately 3,000 light years from Earth.
This event occurs when the white dwarf accumulates material from the red giant until it reaches such high pressure and temperature that it causes a thermonuclear explosion.
That material will be ejected into space in a blinding flash.
The cycle of accumulation and explosion of material between both stars repeats approximately every 80 years.
The last time this nova was observed was in 1946, and Rebekah Hounsell, a research assistant at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and a specialist in nova events, explained that “there are some recurring novae with very short cycles, but generally “We don’t see a repeated burst in a human lifetime, and rarely one so relatively close to our system.”
Hounsell stressed that this is “a once-in-a-lifetime event” that will allow astronomers and other scientists to collect data and ask many questions. (With information from Infobae)
