Astronomers are waiting for the dazzling celestial show

On a cold February night in 1946, a 15-year-old schoolboy made a surprising discovery as he looked out his bedroom window.

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

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

“And I thought I had never seen anything like this before.”

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

“And bless me if the Astronomer Royal does not reply, with a letter I still have.”

Michael Woodman witnessed a rare celestial event that briefly dazzled the sky. Not only that, but the Royal Astronomer informed him that he was the first person in the country to see this.

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

“I hit the jackpot,” he says.

Now a whole new generation of stargazers is scanning the skies again because scientists believe T Cor Bor flares up every 80 years or so.

On a crystal clear night, in the dark sky reserve of Bannau Brycheiniog, also known as the Brecon Beacons, astronomers set up their telescopes.

“T Cor Bor is faint at the moment – ​​it has a magnitude of 10, much lower than what you can see with the naked eye,” explains Dr. Jennifer Millard of Fifth Star Labs.

To find the area of ​​the sky where you should appear, she recommends locating the plow first and following its handle up to Arcturus. To the west of this star is the curved seven-star constellation Corona Borealis, where T Kor Bor will shine at some point.

“It will only be visible to the naked eye for a few days,” she says.

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

This astronomical phenomenon results from the interaction between two stars orbiting each other.

A tiny white dwarf, a dead star, is locked in a cosmic dance with a much larger red giant – a star reaching the end of its life.

The compact white dwarf has enormous gravity, so great that it steals material away from its larger neighbor.

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

Over time, the material it captures from the other star is crushed and compressed – until it eventually results in a nuclear explosion, releasing a massive amount of energy – a process known as a “nova”.

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

Astronomers believe this process occurs frequently, with an outburst from T Cor Bor occurring approximately every 80 years.

But there are not many records about this. And there were indeed some false alarms that T Cor Bor was about to appear – followed by a disappointing no-show.

But Dr. Chris North of Cardiff University says astronomers around the world are preparing to watch the light show, which will allow them to study this star in more detail than ever before.

He hopes to appear soon.

“This appears to have dimmed a little in the past before it actually erupted, and there are indications that perhaps, at the moment, its brightness is dimming a little,” he says.

“So maybe this is a hint that it's getting close to an eruption.”

Michael Woodman would certainly want to see T Cor Bor again.

“Someone will get me into the car and take me out into the wilderness somewhere so I can get myself looking decent. That's what we're hoping for,” he says.

And if he took one more look at the light show, he thought it would put him in a very exclusive club – one club only.

“Eighty years later, we are all looking up at the sky again,” he says. “Not just me, but it seems like the whole world.”

“If I were alive, if I saw it, I would be the only person to have seen it twice.”

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