The Stars Like Dust – Something coming to the heavens near you.

Sometime this summer or fall, something that some of us might have seen before, but probably didn’t think much about, will reappear in our skies. No, it’s not a comet, nor is it a planet or an asteroid. It’s what we call a Nova or a “New star.”

Thing have shown up and disappeared in our skies ever since there was someone to look up and record them. Sadly, large chunks of what was seen, if it was recorded at all, have been lost. An example was a spectacular explosion of a star that happened ten thousand years ago. A mere 1400 Light years away, the exploding star (a Supernova) must have been something to see. It was certainly seen by Humans but if anyone recorded it via a cave painting, then that information is long gone or hasn’t been found. All that remains of that event is something we call “the Veil Nebula.”

I’ve seen one supernova in my life. I was a student at Adams State University (then College) and working at the Zacheis Planetarium and Observatory. Our pride and joy was a 12-inch Cassegrain telescope that I used to roam the heavens. There had been a report of a supernova in a distant galaxy. I turned the scope towards it one night and saw a bright star about 2/3ds out from the center of the distant galaxy. Had it been just a little brighter, it might have been barely within our ability to see it with the naked eye.

Supernovas happen almost every day. In other Galaxies. We’re way overdue for one near us, with the last noted supernova being the Kepler Supernova. That happened some 400 years ago. It should be pointed out that there’s a lot of material in our galaxy and one could have occurred not all that far away, but we won’t see it because of all the dust and gases in our own Galaxy that block it.

But Novas? I’ve seen several of those. They are rather common events, and we get a least one or two a year. Most are so far away or dim, they attract little attention.

I’ve seen several. The first happened while still in college. I’d gone home for the weekend and was up late waiting for an episode of Space:1999 and was watching the news. The weatherman talked about a nova flaring up in Cygnus. I went out, found the so called “Northern Cross” and sure enough, there it was. As luck would have it, I’d brought the 3 1/2-inch Questor Telescope home from college with me. I got it up and going and looked at the distant star. The telescope was so small that it was still just a star, but I still looked at it for a long time.

I ended up missing my episode of Space:1999.

That’s what’s going to blaze up into out sky this year, most likely this summer. It’s a “A Reoccurring Nova” because this star has a history, a very well-defined history of explosions. And it happens every 80 years.

First, where’s this going to be? The name of the star is t Coronae. Stars in any constellation are almost always named according using the Greek alphabet, and the brightest star in the constellation first, then the second, and so on. So, the brightest star in the constellation Coronae Borealis (the Northern Crown) is Alpha Coronae. The second would be Beta Coronae and so on.

T Coronae is way down on the list of brightness. and hovers at magnitude 10, far below what you could see with the naked eye. Even pointing a telescope at it reveals a reddish spark of a star and little else. But like so many things that are hard to see, there’s more than meets the eye here.

Orbiting the star is an almost invisible companion star. The star is a corpse, the ashes of a star that lived out its life and died. It’s what we call a “White dwarf.” It raced through life, consumed the nuclear fuel that fed it. After its burned through the hydrogen it lived on, a star begins trying to burn other elements. In doing so, the core grows hotter. This forces the outer layers of the star to swell up and away. But eventually, the star runs out of anything it can burn.

The core collapses, heats up some, and drives what was left of the layers that made the star out into space. What’s left behind is a spectacular nebula, but the actual star is a husk of its former glory and is maybe the size of the Earth.

Just a side note, this is the long-term future of our Sun. When it swells up, it will consume Mercury, Venus, and probably the Earth. And for about a billion years of so, the ice of Europa (moon of Jupiter) will melt, and it will become a real live ocean world. But some astronomers look at how it might impact the orbits of the remaining planets. The death of the Sun may put everything from Mars to Neptune into a planetary demolition derby. With gravity in flux, the outer worlds may careen about in their orbits, smashing into each other till all that’s left is a ring of debris orbiting and being knocked into what used to be the Sun.

But a White Dwarf is super-hot and that’s one of the building blocks for this kind of nova. Another part of the recipe is that it must be orbiting another star. That this would happen here is not surprising. Most stars in the sky have a companion (which is enough to make you wonder if our sun ever had one – or as some think, still does – and if so, where is it). The white dwarf’s companion is now at the end of its life. It has swelled into the Red Giant phase and its outer layers are close enough for the white dwarf to begin siphoning gases off it.

These spiral down onto the surface of the white dwarf. The gases build up with pressure, get hot from the heat of the white dwarf, and eventually, we have nuclear fusion. In short, a cosmic bomb goes off and what was once invisible, becomes visible.

But before you start reading articles about it lighting up the sky, here’s a little bit of spoiler. It will get about as bright as the Pole Star, which isn’t exactly dim. But it’s nowhere near being the brightest star in the sky either.

Humans have been seeing this Nova since at least 1271 AD. In that year, monks in a monastery near Augsburg, Germany recorded it. And it’s been noted almost every 80 years since. I’m sure it was noticed prior to that observation. Maybe in some still buried Mayan records it was recorded since the Mayas kept very close eyes on the sky. Maybe in China there’s a record or Japan. Maybe some ancient Greek or Roman astrologer included it on a star map that was lost or destroyed.

One thing is certain. This is the first time in history we’ve had the fleet of space observatories that can turn and look at it. It might be interesting to see the results.

So, when the news says it’s happened, go out into the dark. Find the Coronae Borealis and find the new star. It will fade in days or weeks. Soak in the light of it, because while it might not look like much, it’s a drama 80 years in the making.