'Alien Megastructure' Star Keeps Getting Stranger

space.com ^ | 10/05/2016 | Mike Wall

[BenLurkin]

The more scientists learn about "Tabby's Star," the more mysterious the bizarre object gets.

Newly analyzed observations by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope show that the star KIC 8462852 — whose occasional, dramatic dips in brightness still have astronomers scratching their heads — has also dimmed overall during the last few years.

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KIC 8462852 hit the headlines last September, when a team of astronomers led by Tabetha Boyajian of Yale University announced that the star had dimmed dramatically several times over the past few years — in one case, by a whopping 22 percent.

These brightness dips are too significant to be caused by an orbiting planet, so scientists began suggesting alternative explanations. Perhaps a planet or a family of orbiting comets broke up, for example, and the ensuing cloud of dust and fragments periodically blocks the star's light. Or maybe some unknown object in the depths of space between the star and Earth is causing the dimming.

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The weirdness increased in January 2016, when astronomer Bradley Schaefer of Louisiana State University reported that KIC 8462852 also seems to have dimmed overall by 14 percent between 1890 and 1989.

This conclusion is based on Schaefer's analysis of photographic plates of the night sky that managed to capture Tabby's Star, which lies about 1,500 light-years from Earth. Some other astronomers questioned this interpretation, however, suggesting that differences in the instruments used to photograph the sky over that time span may be responsible for the apparent long-term dimming.

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"This star was already completely unique because of its sporadic dimming episodes," Simon said in the same statement. "But now we see that it has other features that are just as strange, both slowly dimming for almost three years and then suddenly getting fainter much more rapidly."

[trebb]

Galactic climate change - we have ruined the whole universe.