> The two are so close that matter being ejected by the red giant collects near the surface of the white dwarf.
> Once the mass roughly of Earth has built up on the white dwarf—which takes around 80 years—it heats up enough to kickstart a runaway thermonuclear reaction, Starrfield said.
Neutrinos actually travel at slower than light speed (just barely) but since they make it through the star unimpeded, they get out well before the visible light from the explosion (talking about a regular supernova here).
I hope that neutrino detectors are sensitive enough to give us advanced warning of this happening. I'm concerned about missing it, especially whenever it hits maximum brightness.
"The light from the blast travels through the cosmos and makes it appear as if a new star—as bright as the North Star, according to NASA—has suddenly just popped up in our night sky for a few days."
> Outbursts have been seen twice, reaching magnitude 2.0 on May 12, 1866 and magnitude 3.0 on February 9, 1946,[16] although a more recent paper shows the 1866 outburst with a possible peak range of magnitude 2.5 ± 0.5.[17] Even when at peak magnitude of 2.5, this recurrent nova is dimmer than about 120 stars in the night sky
What we're reading about has already happened and repeated again at least 30 more times, in the past 3000 years it took for the light to reach us. If there is some kind of astronomical event that will eventually destroy us, it's likely that it has already happened and we're just waiting for the effects to arrive.
I don't see that this is relevant. Relativistically we are all in similar reference frames. And objectively, it is true that explosions within some sphere of earth will happen with some probability and take a fair bit of time to get here.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 40.0 ms ] thread> Once the mass roughly of Earth has built up on the white dwarf—which takes around 80 years—it heats up enough to kickstart a runaway thermonuclear reaction, Starrfield said.
Wild.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_Coronae_Borealis
magnitude 2 is not very bright. Still brighter than stars in the neighboring Hercules