NASA is tracking a ‘zombie star’ that could soon appear in the night sky

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – While Americans celebrate all things spooky today, NASA is keeping a close eye on a star that could soon rise from the dead!

Back in 1946, astronomers observed how a new star suddenly appeared in the night sky, but after a few days it disappeared. Earlier this year, NASA noticed some clear signs that another “Nova” (which is different from a “Supernova”) could emerge from this extraterrestrial zombie.

“Usually when there are explosions in the sky, we don’t know when they will happen,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hayes of NASA. She is a scientist on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which orbits the Earth. “We have a clue about this object because we saw light from it about 80 years ago.”

This Nova is recurring, that is, it happens regularly. They are called zombie stars because the stars themselves have reached the end of their life cycles, but are being fed by a companion star in their binary system.

“It’s a white dwarf, so it’s a dead star. It no longer burns like our sun,” Dr. Hayes explained. “But it has a companion, and that companion is a red giant that spews out a lot of gases and material, and the white dwarf eats up some of that material. Here’s what’s interesting: We know that when this material falls on a white dwarf star, it will accumulate on the dead star to the point that it will cause an explosion.”

When this happens, a star will suddenly appear in a part of the sky that we don’t normally see. It will be in about the same part of the western sky where we saw the comet a couple of weeks ago, and will be about as bright as the stars in Ursa Major. But this has not happened yet.

“We thought this could happen as early as April of this year. Or it could happen in just a couple of years. So it’s very exciting that we can increase that expectation,” Dr. Hayes said. “We just don’t know how quickly this material accumulates, and we don’t quite know when it will reach that magic point that triggers it.”

Essentially, the white dwarf’s surface briefly “reactivates” during a nova, but the fuel burns off quickly. NASA will make an announcement when this finally happens so everyone can see for themselves. Because it is only 3,000 light-years away, it is the closest Nova astronomers will be able to observe and learn from.

“I would like to understand how often this happens? What happens right before this? What does it look like? We’re going to get a better image because it’s especially close,” Dr. Hayes said. “We’ll see things we haven’t seen before in Nova, and this may give us a better way to predict when they will happen and why they will happen.”

A nova is a completely different process than a supernova, where a red supergiant star explodes violently at the end of its life cycle. The resulting explosion is massive and leaves behind the beautiful nebulae we’ve all seen photos of. Here’s a fun Halloween tie-in: A star called Betelgeuse (pronounced Beetlejuice) is our next good chance to see a Supernova, but when will it happen? This could happen tomorrow or thousands of years from now.

Latest local news | First Weather Alert | Crime | National | 13abc Originals