Astronomers hypothesize that this system's white dwarf had so much gas dumped onto it's surface that conditions became ripe for nuclear fusion . The resulting thermonuclear detonation blasted much of the surrounding gas into an expanding shell. The Hubble Space Telescope photographed this expanding shell in 1994. Nova Cygni 1992 was the brightest nova in recent history - at its brightest it could be seen without a telescope. It was observed in every part of the electromagnetic spectrum .
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