An incredibly luminous star system that has long baffled astronomers could soon light up the sky with the nuclear brilliance of thousands of suns, new research suggests. When that happens, the results may be visible from Earth with the naked eye — in day or night.
The star system, called V Sagittae, is composed of a white dwarf — the dense core of a dead, sun-like star — and a more-massive stellar companion, located about 10,000 light-years away, in the constellation Sagitta, the arrow. The voracious white dwarf is gorging on material from its companion "at a rate never seen before," the team said in a statement.
