'New' star to join the night sky when nova appears this year, NASA predicts

Not so fast, solar eclipse. You're not the only rare celestial event happening in 2024.

A new star is predicted to join the night sky between February and September, according to NASA.

The star, T Coronae Borealis, is in a system 3,000 light years away. It last exploded in 1946 and astronomers believe it will do so again between February and September 2024, NASA says.

The star system is usually far too dim to see with the unaided eye. However, after the star goes nova, the system will be of similar brightness to the North Star, Polaris. Once its brightness peaks, it should be visible to the unaided eye for several days and just over a week with binoculars before it dims again, possibly for another 80 years.

The nova will appear as a bright "new" star near the constellation Corona Borealis, or the Northern Crown — a small, semicircular arc near the Bootes and Hercules constellations.

This recurring nova is only one of five in our galaxy, according to NASA. This happens because the star is a binary system with a white dwarf and red giant.

The stars are close enough that as the red giant becomes unstable from its increasing temperature and pressure and begins ejecting its outer layers, the white dwarf collects that matter onto its surface. The shallow, dense atmosphere of the white dwarf eventually heats enough to cause a runaway thermonuclear reaction – which produces the nova we see from Earth.