Lurking in the upper right corner of the constellation Hercules last month was a nameless 14th-magnitude star far below the limit of naked-eye visibility. Fortnight ago a British amateur saw it in a violent eruption which, because of the star's distance, must have occurred about 1,500 years ago. It was throwing off two shells of tremendously hot gas at 1,000,000 m.p.h. By last week it had jumped 13 magnitudes to the first, acquired a name, Nova Herculis 1934. Its radiation had increased 200,000 times; it was among the twelve brightest stars in...
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