Rare nova could be visible 'any day now,' NASA says. How to see it in California

Any day now, Californians and others on Earth will get to see a once-in-a-lifetime event that’s out of this world.

An exploding star.

The nova is expected by the end of September, NASA said. The space agency added the explosion will be so bright that you won’t need a telescope to see it. It’ll be the first since 1946 that a nova is visible to the naked eye.

The explosion will look like one incredibly bright star. But it's actually two stars orbiting each other, the Record Searchlight reported .

T Coronae Borealis, also known as Blaze Star, is a binary system about 3,000 light years from Earth, according to NASA. It’s in the Northern Crown constellation, aka Corona Borealis.

Scientists say people will be able to see the nova between the bright stars of Vega and Arcturus.

What leads to the 'big bang'

Blaze Star includes a white dwarf, a dead star about the size of Earth but with a mass similar to the Sun. NASA said that sets the stage for the dwarf’s relentless gravitational pull, which is slowly taking hydrogen from a red giant star that's very close to it.

The extra hydrogen causes an increase of heat and pressure on the white dwarf’s surface, according to NASA. It becomes too much for the little star to handle.

And that leads to a bright thermonuclear explosion visible from Earth.

Novae seem to reoccur on an average of 80 years for T Coronae Borealis, NASA said.

Where to stargaze

To get the best view of the nova, get out of town.

Lights from cities distract from interstellar events.

Visit California recommends places to gaze at sights such as novae. Among the suggestions:

• Death Valley National Park. Visit California said you can see the Milky Way there with the naked eye.
• Visit California said Lake Tahoe's elevation, which is 6,200 feet, leaves clear skies for stargazing.
• Julian is in San Diego County. In 2021, the town was named an International Dark Sky community because it is easy to see star clusters and other astronomical objects there.

Inspiring the next generation of astronomers

Dr. Rebekah Hounsell, an assistant research scientist specializing in nova experts at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said the explosion will inspire curiosity among young people, who will be able to make their own observations.

“It’ll fuel the next generation of scientists,” she said on the NASA website.

Technically, the nova is old news. People will see what happened thousands of years ago because of the time it takes light to reach Earth from distant stars.

Even so, NASA said, the nova is worth the wait.

How does a nova differ from a supernova?

The existence of a dying star ends with a supernova, a fiery explosion. But a nova leaves the dwarf star intact, as explained by the Indianapolis Star and Space.com .

How far is a star?

Henrietta Leavitt was a Harvard Observatory "computer" who figured out how to compute distances to stars. See the video attached to this story.

Dave Mason covers East County for the Ventura County Star. He can be reached at dave.mason@vcstar.com or 805-437-0232.

This story contains previous reporting by John Tufts of the Indianapolis Star and Jessica Skropanic and Julia Gomez of the Redding Record Searchlight.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Rare nova could be visible 'any day now,' NASA says. How to see it in California