TOLEDO, Ohio. (WTVG/Gray News) – A “zombie star” is expected to come back from the dead and light up the night sky in the coming months. However. scientists don’t know exactly when.
T Coronae Borealis, also known as the ‘Blaze Star,’ is expected to explode any minute now.
This will create a blast of light that will illuminate a dead binary star system for the first time in 80 years, according to NASA.
Back in 1946, astronomers watched as a new star suddenly appeared in the night sky, only to fade away a few days later.
“Usually when explosions go off in the sky, we don’t know when they’re going to happen,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hays of NASA. “This one we have a clue because we saw the light from it about 80 years ago.”
They’re called zombie stars because the stars themselves have reached the end of their life cycle, but they feed off a companion star in their binary system.
When it happens, the star will suddenly appear in a part of the sky we don’t normally see one.
It’ll be roughly in the same part of the western sky where we were seeing the comet a couple of weeks ago, and it’ll be about as bright as the stars in the Big Dipper.
But, it hasn’t happened yet.
“We thought it could happen as early as April this year. Or, it could be as late as a couple of years in the future. So, it’s kind of exciting, we can build up this anticipation,” Dr. Hays said. “We just don’t know how quickly that material is accumulating, and we don’t know quite when it’s going to reach that magical point that sets it off.”
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