'An exceedingly rare event': See a pair of nova explosions shining in the southern sky this week.

Two nova explosions are shown as bright points of light with diffraction spikes emanating outward, outshining the background stars peppering the night sky beyond.

Not one, but two exploding stars are currently visible to the naked eye in the southern night sky, a cosmic coincidence that's "exceedingly rare" and may soon vanish from view entirely.

On June 12, the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN), led by the Ohio State University, detected a dramatic surge in the brightness of an otherwise unremarkable star embedded in the constellation Lupus. Subsequent observations revealed a powerful nova explosion — now designated V462 Lupi — to be the cause of the radiation outburst. The star quickly brightened from its previously dim magnitude of +22 to a peak brightness of around +5.5, rendering it visible to the naked eye.