The Star That Dims Mysteriously
Volunteers looking at a space telescope's data found a star that sometimes dimmed by a fifth, at irregular times. Some astronomers wondered about alien megastructures.
What was reported
Volunteers in the Planet Hunters project, searching data from NASA's Kepler telescope for planets passing in front of stars, flagged a star that behaved strangely: its light sometimes dropped by up to 22 percent, in irregular dips, far more than any planet could cause.
In 2015, the astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, then at Yale, published the findings. The star, KIC 8462852, became known as Tabby's Star. Another astronomer suggested that, among other ideas, it was worth checking whether something built by aliens was passing in front of it.
Explanations offered
Later observations found the dimming was stronger in blue light than in red, which fits dust, not a solid structure. The leading explanation is uneven clouds of dust around the star, though where the dust comes from is still debated.
- When
- Announced in 2015
- Where
- Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
- Witnesses
- Volunteer citizen scientists and astronomers
- Status
- Mostly explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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