A multitude of telescopes around the world have turned their gaze toward the constellation of Corona Borealis in anticipation of a new star appearing, as bright as the stars of the Big Dipper.
According to Space.com, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has recently set aside many other missions to focus on T Coronae Borealis, a dying star that may soon transform into a brilliant supernova similar to the stars in the Big Dipper constellation.
When this event occurs – possibly tonight, tomorrow night, or any night this October, as scientists hope – humanity will witness what appears to be a new star born in the sky.
T Coronae Borealis will explode and become brighter than its companion star, at least equivalent to the brightness of the stars in the Big Dipper when viewed from Earth – (Graphic: NASA).
T Coronae Borealis, sometimes abbreviated as T Cor Bor, is a white dwarf star located in the constellation Corona Borealis.
White dwarfs are the “zombies” of sun-like stars, which, after exhausting their energy, collapse into a smaller but highly energetic object.
Over time, white dwarfs will approach their second death, which results in a supernova explosion.
Although it is an explosion, when viewed with the naked eye from Earth, we will see what looks like a new star flashing brightly in the sky. This “new star” will shine for several days before disappearing forever.
Previous calculations suggest that the appearance of this supernova will make the sky seem to have an additional bright star, akin to the seven stars of the Big Dipper.
Of course, it will not be located with the Big Dipper but in a different area of the sky, making it even more prominent.
Some scientists even believe it could shine as brightly as Venus, known as the Evening Star and the Morning Star, when you look at the sky at dusk and dawn.
For human lifespan, observing a supernova in one’s lifetime can be considered an invaluable event.
For astronomers, however, T Coronae Borealis is a great treasure.
“Typically, what happens to these white dwarfs takes such a long time that we may never see it,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hays from the Fermi telescope operating team.
As soon as the supernova begins to eject material in the anticipated explosion, gamma rays will surge along with a similar increase in brightness, allowing astronomers to decode the temperature of the material immediately after the eruption and the speed at which this material is expelled from the white dwarf.
They will also have the opportunity to learn more about how shock waves propagate through space in the moments following the explosion, a phenomenon that science has yet to fully understand.
The spectacular death of a star will scatter the material it has forged in its core over billions of years, contributing to the chemical enrichment of the universe and creating new, more “advanced” generations of stars.
This October, in addition to Fermi, other powerful telescopes such as James Webb, Neil Gehrels Swift, and INTEGRAL will also be redirected to await the moment of T Coronae Borealis’s explosion.
Since last year, numerous studies have predicted that this explosion is almost certain to occur in 2024, with the period from August to October being the most anticipated.
