Some stars explode as they die. We look at their life cycle

NPR | By Regina G. Barber,

Hannah Chinn, Rebecca Ramirez

Published June 25, 2024 at 9:23 AM EDT

A red giant star and white dwarf orbit each other in this animation of a nova similar to T Coronae Borealis.

This summer, scientists have their eyes and telescopes trained on the small constellation system T Coronae Borealis. They think it will explode as part of a periodic nova — a once-in-a-lifetime event according to NASA scientists. And so, with the help of astrophysicist Sarafina El-Badry Nance, we continue our journey farther and deeper into spacetime with a look at the stars: How they're born and how they die. Sarafina has always been drawn to one particular star: Betelgeuse, a red supergiant in the shoulder of the constellation Orion that is nearing the end of its life. What stages of life did Betelgeuse — or any star — go through before it reached this moment?

This episode is part of our series Space Camp — all abut the weird, wonderful phenomena in our universe. Check it out here: npr.org/spacecamp

The space camp version of this episode was produced and fact-checked by Hannah Chinn. It was engineered by Gilly Moon. It was engineered by Valentina Rodriguez-Sanchez.

The original episode was produced by Rachel Carlson, edited by our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez and fact-checked by Brit Hanson.

Special thanks to our friends at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.