... ESO . ... Survey Telescopes . ... The lead author of the new study, Tomasz KamiЉДski (ESO and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany) explains: тАЬFor many years this object was thought to be a nova, but the more it was studied the less it looked like an ordinary nova тАФ or indeed any other kind of exploding star .тАЭ . ... During the twentieth century, astronomers came to understand that most novae could be explained by the runaway explosive behaviour of close binary stars. ...