Every 80 years, this star appears in the sky—see the once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon

A red giant star and white dwarf orbit each other in this animation of a nova much like the one stargazers can expect to see this year. When the red giant moves behind the white dwarf, a nova explosion on the white dwarf ignites, filling the screen with white light. After the light fades, a ball of ejected nova material is shown in pale orange. A small white spot remains after the fog of material clears, indicating that the white dwarf has survived the explosion.

“We've been following it worldwide and it's been doing some fun things,” says Sumner Starrfield, a professor at Arizona State University who has studied the star system extensively over his career. “It got brighter for a few years and now has faded a bit. It seems to be doing pretty much the same thing it did just before it exploded in 1946, which is why we're suddenly very interested.

“If you're just Joe Blow Average going outside looking up wanting to see it with your unaided eye, you’ve only got a couple of nights to do it in,” Schaefer adds.

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