Hold your hats! Is the ‘Blaze Star’ t corona borealis just before the boom?

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The impression of an artistic artist of a symbiotic, recurring Nova, similar to T Corona Borealis, with an accretion disc of matter that was stolen from a red giant that circles a white dwarf. | Credit: International Gemini Observatory/Noirlab/NSF/Aura/M. Garlick/M. Zamani

A new series of predictions for the so-called “Blaze-Star”, C Corona Borealis, suggests that the star could go Nova on March 27, November 10 or June 25, 2026. However, other astronomers are skeptical of these predictions based on an implicit pattern in the effectiveness configuration of the explosive system.

“T corona borealis [T CrB] is a unique object that has fascinated amateur and professional astronomers for more than a century.

T CRB is a symbiotic binary, a vampire system in which a White dwarf Is siphoning material from A red giant Star. A white dwarf is the dense, compact core remnant of a unique Sun-How starA mass pack that corresponds to that of a star in a volume over that Size of the earth. A red giant represents an earlier level in the development of a star when a sun -like star emanates and swells from its hydrogen fuel supply. His atmosphere, which is held, then easily becomes the severity of the much smaller but denser white dwarf.

The material captured from the red giant forms a spiral disc around the white dwarf and finally places this material on the surface of the white dwarf. As soon as enough material has built up, a thermonuclear explosion is inflamed. It does not destroy the white dwarf, but we can see the light of the explosion over thousands of Light years.

We call this a Nova after the Latin for “New Star”.

Typically, T CRB swings around size +10, which means that it is so weak that it can only be seen by telescopes with medium aperture or large binoculars. However, when it comes to Nova, it lights up on the visibility of bare eyes and is therefore briefly regarded as a “new star” in the night sky.

T CRB is actually even more special than that, since it is a “recurrent” Novas, known in only 11 known “recurrent”, who repeatedly go between explosions with gaps of less than 100 years. Previously, on February 9, 1946 and May 12, 1866, the white dwarf went in the Nova t -crb system. It was also about Christmas in 1787, although the exact date is not known, and there is also a suggestion that a Nova connected to this star was seen at some point in the autumn night sky of 1217.

Before the Nova from 1946, T CRB stopped slightly in 1938 before dimming again shortly before Nova. The same pattern was also observed in T CRB this time, although it was lightened by 0.7 sizes in 2015 before he was dimming again in 2023. For this reason, astronomers expect a new Nova.

Jean Schneider from Paris Observatory has also noticed what kind of pattern between the time of the T -CRB Nova events. The red giant and the white dwarf need 227.5687 days to circle each other, and Schneider believes that every Nova takes place after a time that corresponds to a precise number of orbit. In other words, something about the position of the white dwarf and the red giant triggers the Nova outbreaks, he says.

Since their orbits are circular, not a single position should have an impact. Schneider suggests the presence of a third object in the T -CRB system in a wider elliptical orbit. Every 79 to 80 years, he says that the third object is close to the white dwarf, which means that the white dwarf can also feed both the red giants and this hypothetical third object. This would improve the rate of matter that falls on the white dwarf and generates the conditions for a Nova.

So far, this third object has been undetected, but Schneider announces Space.com that “it could be recognized by astrometry, radial speed, direct imaging, transit or microlinsales”.

In fact, Schneider wonders whether it has not yet been recognized, but was simply not recognized. On April 21, 2016, the T -CRB system suddenly increased the visual brightness by 0.5 sizes.

“I have the following qualitative interpretation that suggestions that the third body outside the pixel met the visual measurements,” he said. In other words, the third object moved close enough to the other two components of the T -CRB system, which in our view shared a pixel with them in pictures and gives its brightness to the combined light of the red giant and white dwarf.

However, other astronomers are not yet convinced. Léa Planquart studied T CRB and other recurring Novas and published A in January a Paper Description of the mass transition between the red giant and the white dwarf based on radial speed observations with the Hermes spectrographer on the 1.2-meter mercator telescope in La Palma in Chile. The radial speed refers here for the context on the Doppler -changed movements of the individual stars and the matter that is transmitted between the red giant, which is known as a “accretion disc” and the white dwarf.

“Jean Schneider proposed the existence of a third companion in an eccentric orbit with a period of 80 years,” Planquart told Space.com. “However, such an additional orbital movement is not determined in our decades of monitoring monitoring.”

In other words, radial speed measurements show no evidence for a third star, although Planquart can exclude a body with a low mass like a large one Exoplanet.

Jeremy Shears, the director of the variable star department of the British Astronomical Association, also has doubts. “Most astronomers are skeptical about this prediction,” he said to Space.com. “The best thing you can do is watch every clear night.”

Should there be no third object, and if the pattern of tailor in the data of earlier Novas is just a coincidence, what happens with T CRB?

A bright yellow star against the blackness of space. In the background you can see bright peak points of the light — The representation of an artist what the Nova could look like. | Credit: NASA

A yellow ball can be seen with a gas pane around them. — Credit: Nasas Goddard Space Flight Center

Planquart’s observations burden the matter, in particular the lightening in 1938 and 2015, followed by a dimming, most recently in 2023.

“We have found that from 2015 to 2023 the accretion disc around the white dwarf reached its maximum expansion and became more hot and shining, which led to an increased brightness,” said Planquart. This improved what Planquart calls “the vampirization effect” and increased the transmission of matter to the white dwarf in a “superactive phase”. Then, in 2023, the accretion disc cooled down again, which led to a dimmer, although the matter continues to flow from the window to the white dwarf at slower speed.

“It is likely that this improved activity is required to trigger the Nova explosion because the material accumulates faster,” said Planquart.

Then, in 2023, the accretion disc cooled down again, which led to a dimmer, although the matter continues to flow from the window to the white dwarf at slower speed. However, the details are still somewhat unclear what causes the change in the change of state in the accretion disc, which leads to the superactive phase, and exactly what happens on the surface of the white dwarf between the windscreen cooling and the Nova explosion?

Although Schneider’s exact date forecasts may come to an end or not, the pattern of the superactive phase followed by calm and dimmer that the Nova is right around the corner. “We may expect to see the explosion in the coming months or possibly next year,” said Planquart.

What can we expect to see in the night sky? In 1946 T CRB reached the size +2, which means that it was easy to see for the mere eye, similar to the stars of the big diper. Shears expects it to be just as bright this time.

T CRB is located in the constellation of Corona Borealis, the northern crown, which is currently visible in the night sky across the entire northern hemisphere and from South Africa and Australia (albeit low in the sky of southern locations).

“At the moment, T CRB is the tenth size and is therefore only visible in huge binoculars,” said Shears. “But when it rises [in brightness] It is visible in standard liners and then in the naked eye. “

And the increase in brightness will be quick. “It is only a few hours for the ascent – exactly how many are not known because the climb has never been caught before,” said Shears. “That’s why it’s so exciting. We hope that we can actually catch it with so many observers this time when it awakens from his sleep.”

In fact, there will be many observers because astronomers are waiting and watching to take a look at this rare Nova and learn more about what happens on the surface of this white dwarf when it houses a huge thermonuclear explosion. “If it explodes, it will be one of the most extensive observed objects that are targeting telescopes worldwide,” said Planquart.

As for the future for T CRB, an even greater explosion is on the horizon. The mass of the white dwarf in the T -CRB system is 1.37 times Mass of our sun. This is very close to the Chandrasekhar borderWhat is 1.44 solar masses and the point is where the Thermonuklear detonation overcomes the white dwarf and she blows as type Ia in Smithereens Supernova. Since it steals the fair to its accompanying giant and grows, it accelerates his own death.