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 27 2016, 04:32 PM
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#2
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 27-March 15 Member No.: 7426 |
I'm aware of two suggestions for how something happening within the star could affect its brightness. The one that can be discussed here has a small black hole becoming lodged inside the star, absorbing its material, and causing it to dim.
Supposing it's possible for a small black hole to assume and maintain such a position, it's not clear if its effects would be sufficient to account for observed long term dimming, or that the effect would vary enough, over short periods of time to explain the dips in brightness. |
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