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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Jan 14 2016, 02:33 AM
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#2
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8784 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Interesting. First thing this makes me think of is a close hot super-Jupiter that is shedding mass at a rapid rate, though constant over the observation period.
-------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Jan 14 2016, 02:54 AM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 723 Joined: 13-June 04 Member No.: 82 |
Interesting. First thing this makes me think of is a close hot super-Jupiter that is shedding mass at a rapid rate, though constant over the observation period. It appears that no RV variations have been detected, as stated in the discovery paper. In addition, there is no IR flux as would be seen from an evaporating planet. From IRTF/SPEX Observations of the Unusual Kepler LightcurveSystem KIC8462852: QUOTE Our observations are consistent with a normal main sequence star without sufficiently large amounts of circumstellar gas or dust, or inflowing or outflowing material, to produce a SpeX detection via the scattering or thermal re-radiation of the star’s insolation. Our observations have eliminated the possibility that there is a sizeable amount of very close-in, very hot (>1000 K) material along our line of sight to the star during the IRTF observations on 31 Oct 2015.
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