You’ll have just a week to spot a rare explosion in the sky – trick to find it as experts warn it could happen at any time

A PAIR of stars in a distant constellation are expected to erupt in the coming months.

T Coronae Borealis, known to astronomers as T CrB, is a binary system composed of a white dwarf and a red giant.

Every eight decades, an increase in heat and pressure triggers an explosion that appears as a bright point of light at night. sky.

But there’s a catch: Scientists aren’t sure when exactly the fire display will appear.

Some say the explosion could happen as early as September 2024, marking the first of the century.

“It’s a unique event that will create many new astronomers out there, providing young people with a cosmic event that they can observe for themselves, ask their own questions and collect their own data,” said Dr. Hounsell, assistant research scientist at Goddard NASA’s Space Flight Center.

However, spectators should watch carefully as the explosion will be brief. Once the star erupts, it will be visible to the naked eye for just under a week.

T Coronae Borealis is situated in the Northern Corona, a U-shaped collection of stars about 3,000 light years away.

Fortunately, it’s easy to find on clear nights. It lies between the constellations of Hercules and Bootes.

Viewers must first locate the two brightest stars in the Northern Hemisphere, Arcturus and Vega. Drawing a straight line from one to the other will lead to Corona Borealis.

Another option is to download the Night Sky app and type in the name of the constellation.

Night Sky and similar stargazing apps provide a simulation of celestial objects based on the user’s location.

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T CrB is composed of a white dwarf and an ancient red giant. The white dwarf is approximately the size of our Earth, with the mass of the Sun, and exerts an unrelenting gravitational force on its neighbor.

These forces strip the red giant of its hydrogen, which accumulates on the surface of the white dwarf and triggers an accumulation of pressure and heat.

The end result is a massive thermonuclear explosion that eliminates hydrogen, and the cycle continues every 80 years.

T CrB is known as nova, characterized by a sudden increase in brightness followed by a gradual return to its original state.

It should not be confused with a supernova, which signals the end of a star’s life cycle.

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Experts believe that the first recorded sighting of the new T CrB occurred in 1217.

What falla German monk noticed “a faint star which for a time shone with great light.”

Irish astronomer John Birmingham spotted the explosion in 1866, just a few years before his death. He is credited with discovering the nova.

T CrB last lit up the sky in 1946. However, its behavior in the last decade reflects that of the decade before the last eruption.

What is the constellation Corona Borealis?

Corona Borealis is a small constellation in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere.

It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy.

Its brightest stars form a semicircular arc.

There are seven stars that make up the constellation’s distinctive crown-shaped pattern.

The Corona Borealis constellation is located between Hercules and Boötes in the night sky.

Its brightest star is Alpha Coronae Borealis.

There is also a yellow supergiant R Coronae Borealis.

T Coronae Borealis, also known as the Blaze Star, last reached magnitude 2 in 1946, and is predicted to do the same in 2024.

This gives scientists reason to believe that T CrB will explode within a few months. However, even experts don’t know what to expect.

Koji Mukai, an astrophysics researcher at NASA Goddard, describes recurring novae as “unpredictable and contrary.”

“When you think there can’t be a reason for them to follow a certain set pattern, they do — and as soon as you start trusting them to repeat the same pattern, they completely deviate from it,” he said.

“We’ll see how the T CrB behaves.”