‘New stars’ are expected to emerge this month: Where? – BRILink and BRI agents – Agenbrilink.net

(NEXSTAR) – Earlier this year, NASA announced that a star system was expected to explode and bring a “new star” to the night sky.

At that time, astronomers believed that a “new star” called the Fire Star would appear between February and September of this year. However, with only a few days left in September, stargazers were still unable to see the once-in-a-lifetime visitor.

So where is it?

Blaze Star is part of the Northern Crown, a star system about 3,000 light years from Earth. Located within the star system is the nova T Coronae Borealis, also known as T CrB, which is one of 10 repeating novae that people have seen explode several times, said Dr. David Wilson, an astronomer and researcher at the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Nexstar.

These novae were born from red giant stars and white dwarfs, which are about the size of Earth, according to Bill Cooke, Chief of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

“More massive stars throw material onto the surface of their white stars; as matter accumulates, the temperature continues to rise until a thermonuclear meltdown begins,” he told Nexstar earlier this year.

When T CrB “goes nova”, to our eyes, it looks like a new star (a nova comes from Latin word for “new star”) has joined the constellation Corona Borealis, or “Crown of the North.”

But if you examine that constellation now, you won’t see T CrB.

Astronomers know that when T CrB last exploded in 1946, the star had dimmed about a year before, then quickly brightened. T CrB began to fade in March 2023, leading many to predict that we will see Blaze Star between February and September of this year.

However, as Cooke and Wilson note, the window of opportunity for T CrB to appear is wider – even within a few months. If it doesn’t explode right away, we might lose it.

“Hopefully this month will explode. “Otherwise, it would be very problematic because it would be behind the sun,” Wilson told Nexstar, explaining that we wouldn’t be able to see the explosion at that time. It won’t return to our night sky. until early next year.

If T CrB reaches nova status before it goes behind the Sun, or after the Northern Corona returns to the night sky, we will only see the new star for a few days.

According to Wilson, it takes about one night for a star to go from “current brightness to maximum brightness.” Then it will disappear and disappear – a process that can take several days to a week.

Even though this is experience 80 years in the making, Wilson cautions that it’s probably best to “moderate expectations.”

“It won’t be very bright,” he explained, comparing it to the North Star. However, its brightness will be bright enough that many of our space telescopes won’t be able to see it in the first few days, Wilson said. “In the next few days, smaller amateur telescopes will do most of the work. “

To find T CrB, you’ll want to look between the constellations Hercules and Boötes, which are located to the north. It will appear in the Corona Borealis, or Northern Crown, found parallel to Vega and Arcturus, according to instructions from NASA below.

For now, Wilson says amateur astronomers around the world are “constantly followed” by T CrB. NASA also has fixed telescopes monitoring it.

If and when we see the Blaze Star, remember: the explosion we saw happened about 3,000 years ago.