Stars often fade away, after a supernova or some other mysterious cosmic event occurs. However, experts say that what is often called a “guest star” will be appearing in the night sky soon and you don’t want to miss it.
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00:00Stars often fade away after a supernova or some other mysterious cosmic event occurs.
00:08However, experts say that what is often called a guest star will be appearing in the night
00:12sky soon and you don't want to miss it.
00:15Guest stars are stellar objects that will light up the sky briefly where there was previously
00:19no star.
00:20The first one documented was seen on July 4th, 1054 by Chinese astronomers.
00:25That one lasted for 23 days and could even be seen during daytime.
00:29Astronomers recently detected a nova in the star system T Corona Borealis and later this
00:33year they predict it will cause one of the brightly shining phenomena.
00:37Nova similar to their supernova cousins are stellar explosions, however they involve much
00:41lower mass stars.
00:42They occur when hydrogen from a dying red dwarf accretes around its binary white dwarf
00:47counterpart.
00:48When the hydrogen gets to a certain temperature, it ignites causing a nova.
00:52Experts say we should expect the guest star to be visible sometime in the second half
00:55of 2024, though they're not sure 100% when.
00:58They say it will not be nearly as impressive as the 1054 first sighting of one of these
01:02events, but for a few hours at least, it will be the brightest star in the Corona Borealis
01:07constellation.