You could say that I have a love affair with the night sky.
Since I was a little kid, I have looked to the stars with wonder. One of my
earliest memories, in fact, was seeing the night sky burning brightly in a
remote Colorado sky unencumbered
by any city lights. As I got older, that love affair extended to telescopes and
amateur astronomy and continues to this day. But the one thing that's remained
constant across my life is the generally unchanging nature of the night sky,
other than the movements of the planets and the occasional comet.
That's about to change. A new star is about to appear in our sky in the northern
hemisphere, and it could be among the brightest, at least for a while. But
first some history. When new stars suddenly appear in the sky humans take notice.
In the year 1054 a star in the constellation Taurus went supernova and lit up
the night sky in a big way, to the point that it was visible in daylight.
Numerous cultures took note of this star and recorded the
event and it is now enshrined in the oral traditions of several cultures along
with written accounts from Europe and the middle east.
There's even a Native American pictograph thought to depict it. But the most
detailed preserved accounts come from Chinese astronomers of the period who
poetically called it a "guest star".
The guest star faded over time, but you can still see the
remnant of this supernova in a telescope or a pair of binoculars. It's called
the crab nebula and represents the shell of gas thrown out by the supernova
explosion. More recently, the southern hemisphere was treated to a similar
supernova in 1987 located on the outskirts of the tarantula nebula. At the time
I was 12 years old and was very sad because it wasn't visible in the northern
hemisphere where I live. But that's now okay as something similar to this event
seems set to happen again. And it's going to happen soon.
Researchers at Calvin
College Michigan
have predicted that a star, currently being called the "Boom Star",
in the constellation of Cygnus will dramatically brighten in the year 2022. If
the prediction holds, it will become one of the brightest objects in the sky
for about six months before calming back down and returning to its normal
brightness after about 2 years.
The real name of the star is KIC 9832227 and it's located at
a distance of about 1800 light-years. The system is made up of two suns that
orbit very closely, so much so that their "year" is only eleven
hours. That orbital speed has been shown to be slowing down. This means that
these two stars are on a collision course.
We've seen stars collide before, it's a fairly predictable
event. But what's rare is for it to happen so close. In the cosmic scheme of
things, 1800 light-years isn't far at all. When the collision happened, for
example, the Roman Empire was in full swing. But when
they do collide to form a new, larger star, lots of light is emitted as the two
suns coalesce.
That's good news for us. While the collision poses no danger
to us, it will treat us to a spectacular display of a new star shining brightly
in the sky that we can watch dim in real time. It's a new guest star and I for
one welcome it. I just hope there's no civilizations closer to it that might
not be so lucky.
Lastly, and completely unrelated, I would like to announce
something special I have planned for 2017 for this channel. While I'm not yet
sure if I'll stream it live or just take a bunch of footage and make a video,
something extraordinary is happening in my area this year and I'm going to
bring you along to enjoy it with me.
On Monday, August
21st, 2017 I will be within the path of a total solar eclipse and I
will be setting up cameras and covering it on YouTube. I've been waiting for
this eclipse for decades so I'll probably be beside myself with excitement,
which isn't really saying much given that I'm sort of mellow, but I'll record
that too. So there's much to look forward to on this channel for 2017 and I
wish all of you a positive, prosperous and happy new year as together we boldly
march into the future.
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