An eclipsing pair of binary stars are going to spiral into each other in 2022, give or take a few months and for half a year will probably become the brightest star in the sky. This is amazing! Their light pulses every 11 hours as they block each other from earth view. This viciously fast orbit has been picking up speed lately and some orbital math shows they have about six earth years left until they spiral into each other and self-obliterate. The red nova will appear in Cygnus, The Swan. Watch for the end-of-life explosion of KIC 9832227, some 1800 light years away.
Reported at National Geographic and The Daily Mail.
There was an earlier prediction of a supernova appearing in 2016 but of a very different character.
Light from that one had arrived here by several pathways, some via a gravitational lens. After seeing the supernova once, scientists were able to predict additional images would appear soon. The KIC 9832227 story will allow us to observe the violence as it happens and is predicted from first principles.
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