Once-in-a-lifetime nova explosion from T Coronae Borealis will create a 'new star' in the sky

Astronomers and stargazers are eagerly awaiting the appearance of a "new" star, which will burst into view in the skies any night now.

The star, T Coronae Borealis (T CrB) or the "Blaze Star," is a nova that appears above our heads roughly every 80 years and will be visible with the naked eye, according to NASA. 

Situated roughly 3,000 light-years away in the Corona Borealis, or Northern Crown constellation, the nova is actually a pair of stars — an ancient red giant and an Earth-size white dwarf that is slowly stripping hydrogen from its companion. 

Once enough hydrogen accumulates on the white dwarf, the growing pressure and heat triggers a thermonuclear blast that is visible from Earth. Besides being a spectacular astronomical event, the explosion helps astronomers to glean insights into how stars behave.

"The novae are caused by material from the red giant of the T CrB system being pulled onto its white dwarf binary component," Edward Bloomer, a senior astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, told Live Science. "Observing the light produced essentially lets us 'map out' the system during this energetic event, and understand more about the mechanics of the nova process itself."

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Two previous eruptions from T CrB, in 1866 and 1946, are well-documented, and evidence suggests the nova may have also been observed in 1787 and 1217.