The star T CrB flares up every 80 years. A document from 1217 could help confirm its regularity.
In 1217, a German monk looked to the starry southwest sky and noticed a normally faint star shining with unusual intensity. It continued to blaze for several days. Abbott Burchard, the leader of Ursberg Abbey at the time, recorded the sight in that year's chronicle."A wonderful sign was seen," he wrote, adding that the mysterious object in the constellation Corona Borealis"shone with great light" for"many days.
In a preprint paper, available on arXiv.org, astronomer Bradley E. Schaefer of Louisiana State University argues that Burchard's record and another chronicle from 1787 constitute the first known sightings of the T CrB nova. But how can we be sure that Burchard had spotted T CrB and not some other celestial phenomenon, such as a one-off supernova or a comet? Schaefer ruled out the possibility of a supernova pretty much right away, on the grounds that if such a violent event — which occurs when a massive star dies in a dramatic explosion — had occurred that recently, it would have left behind remnants that would be clearly visible today.
Related stories—Invisible supernovas called 'bosenovas' may be exploding all around us, new research suggests—Scientists watched a 'reappearing supernova' explode 5 times in a row — and it could help reveal how fast the universe is expanding
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