Cosmic explosion will be visible to the naked eye in once-in-a-lifetime stargazing event - Lemmy.World

The event, known as a nova, will be so bright that a “new” star will seem to appear in the night sky temporarily, visible to the naked eye. A rare cosmic eruption is expected to occur in the Milky Way in the coming months — an outburst so bright that a “new” star will seemingly appear for a short time in the night sky. The event, known as a nova, will be a once-in-a-lifetime skywatching opportunity for those in the Northern Hemisphere, according to NASA [https://blogs.nasa.gov/Watch_the_Skies/2024/02/27/view-nova-explosion-new-star-in-northern-crown/], because the types of star systems in which such explosions occur are not common in our galaxy. The stellar eruption will take place in a system called T Coronae Borealis, which is 3,000 light-years away from Earth. It contains two stars: a dead star, also known as a “white dwarf [https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/extreme-white-dwarf-sets-cosmic-records-small-size-huge-mass-rcna1321],” closely orbited by a red giant [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna48770473]. Red giants are dying stars that are running out of hydrogen fuel in their cores; the sun in our solar system will eventually become one, according to NASA.