Two Stars Won't Collide Into a Red Nova in 2022 After All

We're disappointed, too.

By Jake Parks
Sep 7, 2018 7:00 PMMay 17, 2020 10:26 PM
V838 Mon, Red Nova, Star Explosion - NASA
This image shows V838 Mon, which exploded as a "red nova" in January 2002, suddenly becoming 600,000 times brighter than our Sun. A similar explosion was expected to occur in 2022, but the unprecedented prediction recently fell through. (Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team/AURA/STScI)

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It’s time to face a hard truth. Good science is mostly about meticulously testing informed predictions. And, sadly, these predictions often fall flat.

This is exactly what just happened with one of the most anticipated astronomical events of the upcoming decade: the visible merger and fiery explosion of a pair of nearby binary stars in 2022.

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