Astronomers expect a dazzling celestial spectacle

One cold February night in 1946, a 15-year-old schoolboy made a surprising discovery while looking out his bedroom window.

Michael Woodman, an enthusiastic amateur astronomer from Newport, had stayed up late waiting for his father to return home when he noticed something strange in the night sky.

“There was the constellation of the Corona Borealis, but in the Corona ring the second star from below was bright, very bright,” he explains.

“And I thought, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.'”

The next morning he wrote to the Astronomer Royal. The now 94-year-old smiles at the memory, surprised that his teenage self was so bold.

“And bless him if the Astronomer Royal didn’t respond, with a letter I still have.”

Michael Woodman had witnessed a rare celestial event that briefly dazzled the heavens. Not only that, the Astronomer Royal informed him that he was the first person in the country to have seen this.

He had discovered a star system, about 3,000 light-years away, called T Corona Borealis – or T Cor Bor for short – exploding in brightness, becoming visible in the night sky for a few days.

“I hit the jackpot,” he says.

Now, a whole new generation of stargazers is exploring the skies again because scientists believe T Cor Bor lights up about every 80 years.

On a crystal clear night, in the Bannau Brycheiniog Dark Sky Reserve, also known as the Brecon Beacons, astronomers are setting up their telescopes.

“T Cor Bor is faint right now: it’s magnitude 10, well below what can be seen with the naked eye,” explains Dr. Jenifer Millard of Fifth Star Labs.

To find the area of ​​the sky where it should appear, he advises first locating the plow and following its handle to Arcturus. To the west of this star is the curved constellation of Corona Borealis, made up of seven stars, and where T Cor Bor will eventually illuminate.

“It will only be visible to the naked eye for a couple of days,” he says.

“Of course, if you have a small pair of binoculars or a small telescope, you’ll be able to see it for a little bit longer because you have that magnifying tool. But I think it’s the short time in the sky that makes it really special.”

The astronomical phenomenon is caused by the interaction between two stars orbiting each other.

A small white dwarf, which is a dead star, is caught in a cosmic dance with a much larger red giant, a star that is nearing the end of its life.

The compact white dwarf has an immense gravitational pull, so great that it steals material from its larger neighbor.

“The gravity on the surface of the white dwarf is a million times greater than what we feel on Earth, so if we stood on it, we would be crushed instantly,” explains Dr. Jane Clark of the Astronomical Society of Cardiff.

Over time, the material it takes from the other star is crushed and compressed, until it eventually triggers a nuclear explosion, releasing a huge amount of energy, a process known as a nova transformation.

“And when that happens, it will shine like the best Christmas tree in town,” says Dr. Clark.

Astronomers believe this process repeats itself, with a T Cor Bor burst occurring approximately every 80 years.

But there are not many records of this. And there have already been some false alarms that T Cor Bor was about to appear, followed by a disappointing absence.

But Dr Chris North, from Cardiff University, says astronomers around the world are set to capture the light show, allowing them to study this star in more detail than ever before.

And he is hopeful that it may appear soon.

“It seems like in the past, this has dimmed a little bit before it really flared up, and there are signs that maybe, right now, it’s just dimming a little bit,” he says.

“So maybe that’s an indication that it’s getting closer to erupting.”

Michael Woodman certainly wants to see T Cor Bor again.

“Someone will put me in a car and take me somewhere wild so I can get a good look. That’s what we hope,” he says.

And if you see the light show again, you think it will put you in a very exclusive, one-only club.

“Eighty years later, we are all looking at the sky again, not just me, apparently the whole world,” he says.

“If I’m alive, if I see it, I’ll be the only one who’s seen it twice.”

Then, with a big smile and a giggle, he adds, “I have to keep breathing!”