“International Astronomy”: The world is waiting to see a star explosion in the sky with the naked eye

The International Astronomy Center in Abu Dhabi said in a statement today that the world is awaiting a rare astronomical phenomenon, which is the explosion of a star in the sky that can be seen with the naked eye, as it intensifies for only half a day and then begins to gradually fade for a week.

Engineer Mohammed Shawkat Awda, the director of the center, said that this explosion is expected to occur at any time between now and next September, and that this period may extend for a few more months.

This phenomenon is called a “recurring nova”, which is a sudden explosion of a star that causes its brightness to increase dramatically for a temporary period, and then it dims again.

Awda added that the star expected to explode now is called “T Berenice’s Plexus” and is located in the star cluster called “Berenice’s Plexus”, and is distinguished by the fact that it explodes approximately once every 80 years.

Eyewitnesses have documented the explosion of this star since the year 1217, and its most famous explosion was the one that occurred in 1866 and 1946, and it has been 78 years since its last explosion until now.

He explained that the reason for expecting the star to explode during these months is that observers during previous explosions noticed that its brightness decreased slightly about 1.1 years before its explosion with a fluctuation margin of 0.3 years, which happened in May 2023, meaning that we are now at the end of the expected period for the star to explode.

The director of the International Astronomy Center pointed out that the sequence of changes in the star’s brightness at the time of the explosion occurs quickly, and that it currently shines at magnitude 10, meaning that it can only be seen using a small telescope, but its brightness will appear very clearly to become within a few hours a bright object of the second magnitude, meaning that it will be as bright as the North Star, which means that it will be easily seen with the naked eye even from within light-polluted cities, expecting it to remain like this for only half a day, after which it will begin to gradually dim, and will remain visible to the naked eye for only a week, explaining that observers are following this star daily during this period in anticipation of its explosion.

Experts say: “If the star explodes and the sky is cloudy in the observer’s sky, the phenomenon is worth a quick drive to a clear place to watch the event, which probably only happens once in a lifetime.”

The Director of the International Astronomy Center added: “The Al-Khatem Astronomical Observatory is closely monitoring and observing this star and estimating its brightness at each observation. The results are sent to specialized bodies to be preserved with the rest of the global observation operations, as a contribution from Arab observatories to such unique astronomical phenomena.”