An incredibly luminous star system that has long baffled astronomers could soon light up the sky with the nuclear brilliance of thousands of suns, new research suggests. When that happens, the results may be visible from Earth with the naked eye — in day or night.

The star system, called V Sagittae, is composed of a white dwarf — the dense core of a dead, sun-like star — and a more-massive stellar companion, located about 10,000 light-years away, in the constellation Sagitta, the arrow. The voracious white dwarf is gorging on material from its companion “at a rate never seen before,” the team said in a statement.

These two stars are locked in an extraterrestrial tango so tight that they orbit each other in just 12.3 hours, swinging gradually closer with each orbit, according to the statement. Now, researchers have confirmed that the doomed dance will eventually end with the two stars crashing together and producing a supernova so bright it will be visible during the day.