Posted on 01/16/2016 5:52:31 PM PST by BenLurkin
Theories surrounding the star system KIC 8462852, also known as Tabby's Star, ranged from comets to an "alien megastructure" after the online astronomy crowdsourcing site Planet Hunter discovered an unusual light fluctuation in the star system a few years ago.
A new analysis of KIC 8462852 shows that the star system, which lies about 1,500 light years away, has been gradually dimming for more than a century, and it's likely not caused by a cloud of orbiting comets.
Bradley Schaefer, a physics and astronomy professor at Louisiana State University, examined data from a Harvard University archive of digitally scanned photographic plates of the sky dating back more than a century. He averaged the data and noticed that the star system also dimmed between 1890 and 1989.
...
But the probability of a comet family creating the erratic dip in brightness is highly unlikely, Schaefer said.
"The century-long dimming trend requires an estimated 648,000 giant comets... all orchestrated to pass in front of the star within the last century,"
...
For now astronomers still cannot explain what's going on with KIC 8462852.
"It's a normal star behaving weirdly," Schaefer said. "We've got ourselves a classic mystery."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Isn’t global warming the obvious answer?
Ain't that a KIC in the head.
Since we are unable to see anything more than an apparent dimming of the star, all of them being too far away to make out any details whatsoever, it makes no sense to jump to conclusions. It could be a thousand different things, and whoever picked up and ran with the “alien magastructure” idea was acting out of sheer hysteria.
You mean, like Bruce Jenner?
They are building a Dyson sphere.
Might be a variable star with an extraordinarily long cycle.
Isn’t global warming the obvious answer?
Maybe we get the global warming summer when that star is bright and when it dims in the winter, we get global cooling. : )
Doubtless we’ve stumbled upon the Quagaar homeworld.
It’s paying attention to our politics and starting to lean Left - that makes any brightness dim...
Thanks BenLurkin. H.G Wells probably had the most plausible explanation. ;')
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