Earth’s night sky could have a “new” star blaze into the firmament over the next few months—despite humans having already seen this star a number of times throughout our history—in the form of what is known as a recurrent nova. Located between Hercules and Boötes, this recurrent stellar nova willread more
A star that goes nova is only supposed to explode once… right?
That long-held assumption was upended when astronomers spotted a Type II-P supernova in progress in a star 509 million light-years away on September 8, 2014. The exploding star in question, iPTF14hls, was predicted to fade within 100 days, but its luminosity not only persisted for the next 600 days, it also flared to an even greater brightness at least five more times, implying that this single star had experienced a supernova at least six times.
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