KIC 8462852 Observations |
KIC 8462852 Observations |
Oct 15 2015, 04:45 PM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
Kepler found one very, very strange case:
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive...-galaxy/410023/ In a nutshell, while Kepler was observing it, the star (larger and brighter than the Sun) exhibited four dimming events that took place at irregular intervals, blocked a lot more light than a Jupiter-sized planet would block, and had a "shape" that varied in all four cases and did not resemble a planet. This case is attracting some wild speculation… in fact, it is seemingly certain that something wild must be going on; it's just a matter of which wild scenario is the correct one. If I had to throw my hat in the ring, I'd guess that a distant collision and breakup has placed big swarms of matter into a very long-period orbit. But there's no hypothesis that's been offered that doesn't seem problematic. |
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Oct 21 2015, 04:13 PM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2090 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
But as long as the parent planet's spin axis is pointed towards us, wouldn't the rings be perpendicular through the entire orbit? Uranus doesn't seem like a good example considering it orbits the sun, and its axis is pointed at us only twice each time.
Here's how I'm imagining it: point a finger at something far away, and then move your arm in a circle in front of you. The finger is the spin axis, the hand is the planet and rings, and the circle is the orbit. |
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Oct 21 2015, 04:35 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 723 Joined: 13-June 04 Member No.: 82 |
But as long as the parent planet's spin axis is pointed towards us, wouldn't the rings be perpendicular through the entire orbit? Uranus doesn't seem like a good example considering it orbits the sun, and its axis is pointed at us only twice each time. Here's how I'm imagining it: point a finger at something far away, and then move your arm in a circle in front of you. The finger is the spin axis, the hand is the planet and rings, and the circle is the orbit. But the planet transits the star, so the axis of the rings must be more-or-less perpendicular to the axis of the planet's orbit -- and also pointed at Earth -- with at least three separate objects. One is easy to believe -- it happens in our own solar system with Uranus -- but three, all with their axis pointing at Earth? Sound unlikely to me. On the other hand, this phenomenon is quite unlikely already, otherwise we would have seen other examples before this. |
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