(NLDO) - A series of telescopes around the world have turned towards the constellation of the Northern Crown to wait for the appearance of a new star as bright as the Big Dipper.
According to Space.com , NASA's Fermi gamma-ray space telescope has in recent days abandoned many other missions to aim directly at T Coronae Borealis, a dead star that could soon turn into a supernova as bright as the stars in the Big Dipper constellation.
When this happens - maybe tonight, tomorrow night, or any night this October as scientists expect - humanity will see as if a new star has just been born in the sky.
T Coronae Borealis will explode and become brighter than its companion star, at least as bright as the Big Dipper stars as seen from Earth - Graphic image: NASA
T Coronae Borealis, sometimes abbreviated as T Cor Bor, is a white dwarf in the constellation Corona Borealis.
White dwarfs are the "zombies" of Sun-like stars that, after running out of energy, collapse into a smaller but more energetic object.
After some time, the white dwarf will reach its second death, a supernova explosion.
Although it is an explosion, to the naked eye from Earth it will look like a new star shining brightly in the sky. This "new star" will shine for many days before disappearing forever.
Previous calculations showed that the appearance of this supernova would make the sky appear to have an additional star as bright as the seven stars of the Big Dipper constellation.
Of course it is not located with the Big Dipper, but in a different area of the sky, so it stands out even more.
Some scientists even claim that it can be as bright as the Morning Star and the Evening Star (two other names for the planet Venus) when you look up at the sky in the early and late evening.
For a human lifespan, observing a supernova in one's lifetime is a priceless event.
For astronomers, T Coronae Borealis is a great treasure.
"Usually, what happens to these white dwarf stars takes so long that we never get to see it," said Dr Elizabeth Hays from the Fermi telescope operations team.
As soon as the supernova begins to eject material in the expected explosion, gamma rays will spike along with a similar increase in brightness, allowing astronomers to decipher how hot the material was immediately after the eruption and how fast that material was blowing away from the white dwarf.
They will also have the opportunity to learn more about how shock waves travel through space in the moments after an explosion, something science still doesn't fully understand.
The fiery death of a star will eject the matter it has forged in its nucleus over billions of years of life, contributing to the chemical enrichment of the universe and creating new generations of "higher" stars.
This October, in addition to Fermi, other powerful telescopes such as James Webb, Neil Gehrels Swift, INTEGRAL will all turn to wait for the moment T Coronae Borealis explodes.
Since last year, many studies have predicted that the explosion will almost certainly take place in 2024, with the August-October period being the most anticipated.
Source: https://nld.com.vn/ngan-nam-co-mot-bau-troi-thang-10-xuat-hien-sao-bac-dau-thu-8-196241006091022561.htm
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