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It is difficult to predict when a nova -- a process in which a star shows a sudden large increase in brightness -- will occur, Boyd said.

\"This explosion, it could happen tonight; it could happen a year from now or six months or a couple of weeks,\" Boyd said. \"We know it's coming soon.\"

The Northern Crown is a horseshoe-shaped curve of stars west of the Hercules constellation, according to NASA. In the Northern Hemisphere, it can be identified by finding the two brightest stars -- Arcturus and Vega -- and tracking a straight line from one to the other, leading stargazers to Hercules and the Corona Borealis.

The outburst is expected to be brief. The nova, when a star shows a sudden large increase in brightness, will only be visible to the naked eye for less than a week, according to NASA.

To astronomy enthusiasts, it will appear as if a new star appeared in the sky, Boyd said.

\"It’ll look like the jewel in the crown of the corona,\" she said.

\"PHOTO:
Patrick Pleul/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
PHOTO: Clouds in the night sky obscure the view of the Northern Crown constellation.
>

Scientists are hoping to study the nova to discover what happens when the material is blasted from the white dwarf and distributed into neighboring galaxies, Boyd said.

The material includes elements such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and neon. Other stars will gather this material as they are forming their own solar systems, Boyd added.

\"This is where that material in our own solar system -- in our planet, in the oceans, in our bones, in our blood -- those materials come from stellar explosions,\" Boyd said.

The excitement surrounding the event is expected to \"fuel the next generation of scientists,\" Rebekah Hounsell, an assistant research scientist specializing in nova events at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement earlier this year.

\"It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event that will create a lot of new astronomers out there, giving young people a cosmic event they can observe for themselves, ask their own questions, and collect their own data,\" Hounsell said.

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