Imagine looking up at the sky in the middle of the day—and seeing a brand-new star shining as bright as Venus. Astronomers now believe this could actually happen, thanks to a mysterious star system called V Sagittae.

V Sagittae is a binary star system, about 10,000 light-years away. It consists of a hot, massive star and a white dwarf—the dense core of a dead star. But this system is anything but stable. The white dwarf is stealing material from its companion star, forming a huge halo of gas around them.

As the white dwarf pulls in more and more matter, it’s being pushed toward a dangerous threshold. Once it reaches about 1.4 times the mass of our Sun—the Chandrasekhar limit—it won’t survive. Instead, it will explode as a powerful supernova.

This explosion, known as a Type Ia supernova, can completely destroy the white dwarf and release an incredible burst of light. And here’s the extraordinary part: the blast will be so bright that people on Earth will be able to see it with the naked eye, even during the day.

Astronomers believe this could happen in the coming years, not centuries. When it does, it will be one of the most spectacular events humanity has ever seen.