Astronomers Fixated on 'Once-in-a-Lifetime' Cosmic Nova Explosion This Summer, Says NASA

This summer, amateur and professional astronomers will likely get to witness a rare cosmic occurrence so bright it will be visible from Earth with the naked eye - a Nova explosion.

Knewz.com has learned that the cosmic explosion will occur in the Corona Borealis, or Northern Crown, of the Milky Way sometime between now and September.

NASA announced the upcoming Nova event earlier in June and said that this rare and interesting cosmic event might inspire "the next generation of scientists ."

Although the burst of light visible from Earth from the explosion will be brief, lasting only a week or so, Dr. Rebekah Hounsell, an assistant research scientist specializing in nova events at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, believes that it will be "a sight to see."

"It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event that will create a lot of new astronomers out there, giving young people a cosmic event they can observe for themselves, ask their own questions, and collect their own data," Dr. Hounsell said in the official announcement from NASA.

It is worth noting that a Nova event is quite different from a Supernova explosion, as NASA explained.

"In a nova event, the dwarf star remains intact, sending the accumulated material hurtling into space in a blinding flash. The cycle typically repeats itself over time, a process which can carry on for tens or hundreds of thousands of years."

On the other hand, a Supernova is a massive explosion that marks the death of some dying stars.

As for the Nova explosion that has got astronomers excited this year, it will involve the T Coronae Borealis, a binary system comprising a white dwarf star and a red giant star that is "slowly being stripped of hydrogen by the relentless gravitational pull of its hungry neighbor," located 3,000 light years from Earth.

The white dwarf star in T Coronae Borealis is an Earth-sized remnant of a dead star that has a mass comparable to that of the Sun .

"The hydrogen from the red giant accretes on the surface of the white dwarf, causing a buildup of pressure and heat. Eventually, it triggers a thermonuclear explosion big enough to blast away that accreted material," NASA explained.

On average, the nova explosion in T Coronae Borealis occurs every 80 years, making it a rare wonder to behold.

"There are a few recurrent novae with very short cycles, but typically, we don’t often see a repeated outburst in a human lifetime, and rarely one so relatively close to our own system... It’s incredibly exciting to have this front-row seat," Dr. Hounsell said in the official NASA announcement.

"We’ll observe the nova event at its peak and through its decline, as the visible energy of the outburst fades... But it’s equally critical to obtain data during the early rise to eruption – so the data collected by those avid citizen scientists on the lookout now for the nova will contribute dramatically to our findings."

Dr. Elizabeth Hays, chief of the Astroparticle Physics Laboratory at NASA Goddard, said that scientists are counting on the international community of stargazers to put out an alert via social media and email as soon as the nova event becomes visible.

The NASA announcement has also provided instructions for amateur astronomers about how to spot the Corona Borealis ahead of the event:

"The Northern Crown is a horseshoe-shaped curve of stars west of the Hercules constellation, ideally spotted on clear nights. It can be identified by locating the two brightest stars in the Northern Hemisphere – Arcturus and Vega – and tracking a straight line from one to the other, which will lead skywatchers to Hercules and the Corona Borealis."