Winking star surrounded by embryonic solar system
Astronomers have found a young star with a dust cloud around it which may one day form a solar system like our own.
The cloud eclipses the star making it wink. It's the first time scientists have had a chance to study a structure like it.
It may help them understand how our own star and planet evolved.
Their view is so good they can see annual and even monthly changes.
The structure is thought to be just three million years old and 2,400 light years from the Earth.
Scientists led by William Herbst and Catrina Hamilton, of Wesleyan University in Connecticut, carried out the study into KH 15D.
The star is in the constellation of Monoceros and inhabits a nebulous region of space close to the famous Cone Nebula.
Observations made in the late 1990s tipped them off that this structure was different to others. Herbst said: "Basically, the star winked at us."
That is because it fades out every 48.3 days and stays faint for about 18 days. Material orbiting the star blocks its light out on this regular basis.
There are many examples of eclipsing binary stars but the length of the eclipse is unique in the case of KH 15D because only a collection of smaller objects surrounding the star can explain it.