KIC 8462852 Observations |
KIC 8462852 Observations |
Oct 15 2015, 04:45 PM
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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 25 2016, 10:04 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 27-March 15 Member No.: 7426 |
If I recall correctly, the Kepler Space telescope found no periodicities in the dips in light from this star. We're assuming, it seems, that the plane in which any planets, or their shattered debris would travel, aligns with the star from our point of view.
Even if two planets had collided and destroyed themselves, we might have expected other planets, or even just one, to be found, mightn't we? If there was a complete absence of planets around this star, these collisional scenarios would seem to be unworkable. |
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