Oct 27, 2014 12:58 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

For the first time, astronomers have captured a thermonuclear explosion from a nova star, providing a rare study opportunity.

According to the Guardian, researchers from 17 different institutions across the globe contributed on a study published in the journal Nature. The U.S.-based Chara Array infrared telescope was used to make the observation last year and the explosion took place in the Delphinus constellation.

"We haven't had the ability to witness such exquisite magnification or high resolution of images until very recently, when we started building these powerful Array telescopes," study co-author Peter Tuthill, a professor at the University of Sydney's Institute for Astronomy, told the Guardian. "These explosions are quite unusual events caused by a white dwarf star, which is a burned-out remnant of a star made of very dense material - a teaspoon full of this stuff weighs tons."

Gail Schaefer, an astronomer at Georgia State University and the study's lead author, and the team found the process produces "oceans" of hydrogen hundreds of meters deep. At the bottom of which, the pressure builds until it is released in a thermonuclear explosion.

They measured the nova 43 days into the detonation process and found it was expanding at a rate of 600km per second, an increase 20 times what it had been before. The explosion took place nearly 15,000 years ago, as evidence from its distance from the sun.

"The white dwarf star is like a mosquito that buzzes around the companion star, slowly sucking hydrogen from its companion through a little gravitational straw," Tuthill said. "You get a fireball, like a massive hydrogen bomb that propagates outwards."

The nova's white dwarf was intact at last observation and it has not broken its orbit, meaning it is gathering matter to start the process all over again.

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