3 days Ago By [email protected] (Cathy Owen)
Astronomers are eagerly anticipating a celestial event that only happens every 80 years. A guest star in the night sky, called T Cor Bor, can't normally be seen by the naked eye but is expected to become much brighter and more visible in the night sky. Stargazers have been looking toward the Corona Borealis constellation recently, eagerly awaiting the once-in-a-lifetime reignition of a long-dead star in an explosion powerful enough to briefly match the brilliance of the North Star.
T Cor Bor, which is short for Coronae Borealis and is also known as the Blaze star, is actually two stars orbiting around each other - a dense, burnt-out star siphoning material from its companion star, which is a massive red giant close to the end of its life. Every 80 years or so, the white dwarf manages to drag enough mass from the bigger mass to trigger a nuclear explosion, sparking an outburst that boosts its typically dim magnitude of 10 to a bright 2.0 — that should look like a "new star" in the night sky to us.
The last time it happened was in 1946. Experts originally thought it might ignite in September, but it has proved elusive despite signs that an outburst is imminent. One of the places where they are on the look out is at the Dark Skies Reserve of Bannau Brycheiniog ( Brecon Beacons).
Get a free digest of the latest Welsh headlines delivered to your email inbox every day Dr Jenifer Millard from Fifth Star Labs. told the BBC : "T Cor Bor is dim at the minute - it's magnitude 10, well below what you can see with the naked eye. To find the area of sky where it should appear, first locate the plough and follow its handle to Arcturus.
To the west of this star is the curved constellation of Corona Borealis, made up of seven stars, and where T Cor Bor will at some point light up. "It is only going to be visible to the naked eye for a couple of days. Of course, if you've got a small pair of binoculars or a small telescope, you'll be able to see it for a little bit longer because you've got that magnifying tool.
But I do think that it is the short stint in the sky that makes it really special." Astrophysicist Elizabeth Hays, who is watching for it every day using NASA's Fermi gamma-ray space telescope, told Space.com in a recent interview.
""We know it has to happen, We just can't pin it down to the month." Astronomer David Williams-Baldwin told BBC Breakfast on Monday, December 30: "I am very excited. I have been waiting patiently for the past couple of years to see when it was going to go bang again.
"This is an odd one, It shows a precursor dip about a year before hand. It is a bit overdue now. About three months from when we first thought it was due.
There are a huge number of amateur astronomers across the world looking out for it, so people should look out for the alerts. It is a once in a generation event. It should be visible to the naked eye for several days.
" He advised that anyone hoping to see the star should look for The Plough, find its handle and look for a bright and orange star in the sky, then look due west and there should be a backward C constellation and it would be in the bottom left of that constellation..
