An exploding star is due to show up in our skies for the first time in almost 80 years — here’s how to spot this ‘once-in-a-lifetime event’

The brightest star in Corona Borealis is called Alpha Coronae Borealis, which forms the peak of the upside-down crown in the image below.

Then, look slightly down and to the left of Alpha Coronae Borealis: that’s where the T Coronae Borealis star system lives and where the nova should appear:

As the red giant tears apart nearby stars, the dense white giant absorbs the shrapnel, a mixture of hydrogen-rich materials that come its way.

The tiny dead star then gradually becomes hotter until it reaches a breaking point when all that energy is released in a huge cosmic explosion called a nova.

Humans have seen this nova many times before. It was first identified by astronomers in the late 1800s, and it bursts about every 80 years.

Indeed, the explosion heading our way would have taken place thousands of years ago, but requires all that time for the light to reach us.

It’s hard to know if the eruption took place until we can see it. But for Gianluca Masi, an astrophysicist and the scientific director of the Virtual Telescope Project, that’s what makes it fun.

“This kind of uncertainty, to me, makes things even more fascinating, as we need to look every clear night up there and at some point, with our joy and surprise, we will find T CrB shining up there!” Masi told BI in an email.

If, or when, the nova rears its head, it’ll be worth checking out — this will probably be the last viewing opportunity before the early 2100s.

“We don’t often see a repeated outburst in a human lifetime, and rarely one so relatively close to our own system. It’s incredibly exciting to have this front-row seat,” Rebekah Hounsell, a nova expert at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a press release.