Here is a continuation of what astronomers had to say about this baffling discovery:
“It seems that every time someone looks at the star, it gets weirder and weirder,” says Benjamin Montet at the California Institute of Technology, who led the study.
This space oddity was first spotted by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which continually monitored 100,000 stars from 2009 to 2013. Any dip observed in a star’s light is a sign that an exoplanet has passed in front of it. These dips, which occur regularly, block at most 1 per cent of the star’s light and have revealed thousands of exoplanets.
So we know the comet theory is bogus and that nothing can explain it so far. And the fact that the dimming increased so rapidly within the last 100 and even 4 years is astounding.
What could it mean? Check back for updates as this is one of the biggest stories in all of astronomy right now..
Here is the more technical readings which came out to three signals:
We obtain accurate relative photometry of KIC 8462852 from the Kepler full frame images, finding that the brightness of KIC 8462852 monotonically decreased over the four years it was observed by Kepler. Over the first ~1000 days, KIC 8462852 faded approximately linearly at a rate of 0.341 +/- 0.041 percent per year, for a total decline of 0.9%. KIC 8462852 then dimmed much more rapidly in the next ~200 days, with its flux dropping by more than 2%. For the final ~200 days of Kepler photometry the magnitude remained approximately constant, although the data are also consistent with the decline rate measured for the first 2.7 yr. Of a sample of 193 nearby comparison stars and 355 stars with similar stellar parameters, 0.6% change brightness at a rate as fast as 0.341 +/- 0.041 percent per year, and none exhibit either the rapid decline by >2% or the cumulative fading by 3% of KIC 8462852.
thanks to arvix.org for the great info
thanks to newscientist.com for the great info
thanks to NASA for the pic
Is this in reference to the star and or planet once known as Niburu or Planet X?
You stole the graphic and headline for this article directly from New Scientist??
Isaac, no. This is based on science, not folklore.
Alien bugs took them. Its A warning. RUN!
Sick of articles like this misleading the public, it’s only conjecture it’s alien no factual evidence for this exists! it’s was bullshit then and is bullshit now I’m afraid, there’s also a hypothesis it’s a lot of comets or asteroids but no evidence for that exists neither!
Did you read the article? No one is actually suggesting an alien megastructure except as a LAST resort, meaning there is no natural explanation that can account for all three phenomena. They want a natural explanation.
Aliens building a Dysons sphere ????
I’m confused…the tag mentioned a triple signal. The article mentioned nothing about it.
Cody Mills Matt Kiser
Eric Bowman, she’s referring to the reference to a scientist who stated it was the only explanation he could think of. The author then runs with it.. using the words “mysterious sphere around the star” as if such a thing had been detected. …. this article is deliberately misleading. Akq: clickbait
It’s the reapers
It’s the frickin death star
No…no no no no NO!…the triple signal is NOT happening Now…it happened some 100 million years ago or more and it took that long for the light of what ever event transpired so long ago to reach us. Gah!! >:(
No
This is some pretty epic stuff. I’ve been following this story for about a year and Everytime I read an article I just want it to have the answer. But alas, no. I’m so intrigued.
How far away is it? If it’s the second coming of Christ he better hurry.
lets not forget that whatever phenomena we are seeing happened millions of years ago…the dimming light has traveled a long way for a long time to be witnessed by us…
I’m 100% certain that there is not a single astronomer involved here that’s confused about that.
Kim Maddox
You guys need to let this one go. You look like idiots continuously posting this click bait.
Of course there isn’t, it’s just the ill informed non researching media that is inadvertantly getting people thinking entirely erroneous. :/
So that’s where we came from !!! Kinda mind boggling just entertaining the thought!! Oh and good catch on the 100 million years ago, I was wondering the same thing!!
Humans will always be baffled by that which the can never fully know…Yet they will try and at times completely make things up
It’s a star digesting another star. Old news.
Stop recycling this story.