The space agencies, professional astronomers and amateurs around the world are excited and expectant about one of the most surprising astronomical events in recent decades. Everyone will fix their eyes and telescopes towards a specific point in the sky to appreciate the death of a star or nova.
T Coronae Borealis (T CrB)nicknamed the “Blaze Star” and known to astronomers simply as “T CrB”, is a binary system, made up of a white dwarf star and a red giant star, located in the Northern Crown, about 3,000 light years from the Earth, where an imminent nova event is about to occur, so bright that it will be visible from Earth with the naked eye, according to a report from NASA.
This system is composed of a white dwarf (an Earth-sized remnant of a dead star with a mass comparable to that of our Sun) and an ancient red giant that is slowly being stripped of hydrogen by the relentless gravitational pull of its hungry neighbor.
“It is a once-in-a-lifetime event that will create many new astronomers, giving young people a cosmic event that they will be able to observe for themselves, ask their own questions and collect their own data. “It will feed the next generation of scientists.”said Dr. Rebekah Hounsell, scientist, researcher and assistant specializing in nova events at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
WHAT IS A NOVA?
A nova is a cataclysmic event that occurs in a binary system, that is, in the interaction of two stars that are linked by their gravitational force. In all the observed novae, a white dwarf star is involved in a nearby binary system that extracts matter from its companion and in doing so produces a nuclear fusion explosion that does not trigger the destruction of the starand which, therefore, can lead to other explosions.
The main subtypes of novae are classical novae, dwarf novae and recurrent novae. This last type is to which T Coronae Borealis belongs.
What is happening is that hydrogen from the red giant builds up on the surface of the white dwarf, causing a buildup of pressure and heat. Eventually, it triggers a thermonuclear explosion large enough to blow up that accumulated material. For T CrB, that event seems to repeat itself, on average, every 80 years.
A nova should not be confused with a supernova, which is the final, titanic explosion that destroys some dying stars. In a nova event, the dwarf star remains intact, sending the accumulated material into space in a blinding flash. The cycle usually repeats itself over time, a process that can last tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
“There are some recurring novae with very short cycles, but we don’t normally see a repeated outburst in a human lifetime, and rarely one so relatively close to our own system. It is incredibly exciting to have this front row seat.”Hounsell said.
WHEN CAN THE NOVA BE SEE?
The first recorded sighting of nova T CrB was more than 800 years ago, in the fall of 1217, when a man named Burchard, abbot of Ursberg, Germany, observed “a faint star that for a time shone with great light”.
The T CrB nova was last seen from Earth in 1946. Its behavior over the past decade appears strikingly similar to behavior observed in a similar time period before the 1946 eruption. If the pattern continues, some researchers say, the nova event could occur in September 2024.
Now, there is a chance that SEPTEMBER will come and go without the expected T CrB nova burst. Experts agree that there are no guarantees, but hope remains. So we would only have to follow the advice of Dr. Anthony Choy and “keep an eye on the skies.”
“Recurrent novae are unpredictable and contrary. When you think there can’t be a reason for them to follow a certain pattern, they do, and as soon as you start trusting them to repeat the same pattern, they deviate from it completely. We will see how T CrB behaves”said Dr. Koji Mukai, an astrophysics researcher at NASA Goddard.
WHERE TO WATCH THE NOVA?
The Northern Crown is a horseshoe-shaped curve of stars west of the constellation Hercules, ideal for viewing on clear nights. It can be identified by locating the two brightest stars in the northern hemisphere, Arcturus and Vega, and following a straight line from one to the other, which will lead skywatchers to Hercules and the Corona Borealis. The explosion will be brief. Once it erupts, it will be visible to the naked eye for just under a week, but Hounsell is confident it will be quite a sight to see.
Normally, novae are not visible to the naked eye. T CrB It is a star system that normally has magnitude +10, that is, it is too faint to see with the naked eye. However, it will jump to magnitude +2 during the event, so it will have a brightness similar to that of the North Star, Polaris.
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