The Northern Crown

A red giant star and a white dwarf orbit each other in a nova animation similar to that of T corona borealis. The red giant is a large ball in shades of red, orange and white, with the side facing the white dwarf being in lighter shades. The white dwarf is hidden in a bright white and yellow glow, representing an accretion disk around the star. A stream of material, shown as a diffuse cloud of red, flows from the red giant to the white dwarf. When the red giant passes behind the white dwarf, a nova explosion occurs on the white dwarf, creating a ball of ejected novae material shown in bright orange. After the fog dissipates, a small white dot remains, indicating that the white dwarf survived the eruption. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Don't miss it: in the coming months, a nova eruption is expected to occur that will be visible to the naked eye

The T Corona Borealis system includes a white dwarf—an Earth-sized remnant of a star with a mass similar to that of our Sun—and an ancient red giant whose hydrogen has been sucked up by a force