Astronomers are in for a dazzling celestial show

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

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

“There was the constellation Corona Barelys, but in the Corona ring, the second star 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. Now 94, the man smiles as he recalls the memory, amazed that he was so bold as a teenager.

“And bless me if the Astronomer Royal hasn’t answered the letter I still have.”

Michael Woodman witnessed a rare celestial event that briefly blinded the heavens. Not only that, the Astronomer Royal informed him that he was the first person in the country to see it.

He spotted 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 short days.

“I broke the bank,” he says.

Now, a whole new generation of stargazers is scanning the sky again because scientists estimate that T Cor Bor flares up about every 80 years.

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

“T Cor Bohr is faint at the moment – it’s magnitude 10, which is much lower than what can be seen with the naked eye,” explains Dr. Jennifer Millard of Fifth Star Labs.

To find the part of the sky where it should appear, she advises first finding a plow and following its handle to Arcturus. To the west of this star is the curved seven-star constellation Corona Borealis, where T Cor Bor will burn at some point.

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

“Certainly if you have a small pair of binoculars or a small telescope, you can see it a little bit longer because you have a magnifying instrument. But I think it’s the short stay in heaven that makes it really special.”

The astronomical phenomenon is caused by the interaction of two stars that revolve around each other.

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

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

“The gravitational pull on the surface of a white dwarf is a million times greater than the gravity we experience on Earth, so if we were standing on it we would be instantly crushed,” explains Dr Jane Clarke of the Cardiff Astronomical Society.

Over time, the material it grabs from another star shreds and contracts – until it eventually causes a nuclear explosion, releasing enormous amounts of energy – a process known as a nova.

“And when it does, it will shine like the best Christmas tree in town,” says Dr Clarke.

Astronomers believe that this process repeats itself, with an outburst from T Cor Bor occurring approximately every 80 years.

But there are few records about it. And there were already a few false alarms that T Cor Bor was about to arrive – followed by disappointment.

But Dr Chris North from Cardiff University says astronomers around the world are ready to witness a light show that will allow them to study the star in more detail than ever before.

And he’s hoping it can come soon.

“It looks like it dimmed a little bit in the past before it actually flared up, and there are indications that maybe the brightness is just going down a little bit at the moment,” he says.

“So maybe this is a hint that it’s getting closer to its eruption.”

Michael Woodman certainly wants to see T Cor Bor again.

“Somebody put me in a car and drive me somewhere in the wild so I can look decent. That’s what we hope for,” he says.

And if he sees the light show again, he believes it will be in a very exclusive club – only one.

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

“As long as I’m alive, when I see it, I’ll be the only one who saw it twice.”

Then with a big smile and a little laugh, he adds, “Got to keep breathing!”