[piytar]

My bet that it’s a binary star system with one of the stars being a captured black hole. That explains the data quite easily.

[piytar]

Is that*

[Bogie]

That’s exactly what I was thinking.

[editor-surveyor]

.
That is like a litter of mice “capturing” the big black cat that is stalking them. They could capture his stomach.

[Windflier]

“My bet that it’s a binary star system with one of the stars being a captured black hole.”

You beat me to it. That was also my conclusion. What else could reduce the visible light output from a star by 20%?

The only thing I’d add, is that it would have to be a very small black hole, or an extremely massive star.

I wonder if the observations show a significant wobble? That would be the smoking gun.

[Windflier]

On second thought (it’s late), a brown dwarf makes more sense. Even a small black hole would probably be eating the star already, and the orbital wobble of the star would be unmistakable.