In 2015 a very strange star known as KIC 8462852, also dubbed Tabby’s Star, made the headlines
as it presented mysterious features in its light curve that wasn’t particularly consistent
with anything that had been seen before.
While it has always been overwhelmingly likely that the explanation for KIC 8462852 was some
natural phenomenon that we simply hadn’t thought of, it was also advanced that the
dips in the light curve observed with this star might be consistent with gigantic alien
megastructures.
We’re, at least temporarily, in that territory again.
At the time, there wasn’t a lot of data on Tabby’s star, just that taken by the
Kepler Spacecraft and a few other observations.
What hadn’t been studied is the star actually in the act of dipping, where differences in
absorption between wavelengths of light could be studied and determined if whatever was
blocking the light was consistent with dust, or solid objects presumably what you would
expect from megastructures.
This has since been done, and it appears to be dust in some strange juxtaposition around
the star, though mysteries remain, and no really good model for what’s going on has
been put forth.
Those questions have just become a bit more perplexing because, at least right now, a
star that initially appears to be doing something similar to KIC 8462852 has been detected.
In a paper by Roberto Saito and colleagues, they detail that they had actually been looking
for something completely different when they found it, stars that appear to brighten as
they undergo supernovas.
Like Tabby’s Star, which was initially known by the moniker WTF star, for Where’s the
Flux?
This star is now similarly named VVV-WIT-07, the WIT part short for What is this?
One thing that’s noteworthy is the depth of the dips present with this star.
Tabby’s Star maxes out, at least so far, at about 22 percent.
This new star drops by up to 80 percent.
Stars that drop in brightness to that level are known; the star J1407 dips by up to 95
percent.
The scientists working on that star led by Eric Mamajek eventually found that the star
was being orbited by a planet with an unbelievably extensive ring system, and that’s what was
blocking the light.
VVV-WIT-07 could well be another case of this, though that model does not well fit Tabby’s
Star.
The difference in this case however is that VVV-WIT-07 sits within the plane of the galaxy,
which is a very dusty place.
With KIC 8462852, dust in the interstellar medium was one of the main potential explanations
for a while, though this doesn’t seem to be the case now.
However with this new star, it very well might be the case that cold dust in the interstellar
medium might be causing the dips.
Or, some other cause, perhaps variability within the star itself, which spectra seem
to somewhat support.
So we shall see, but the take home here, at least right now, is that the better the instrumentation
gets, and the longer astronomers look at stars, weird natural phenomena are going to be the
norm from here on out.
And eventually, just maybe, through the various SETI efforts and the study of exoplanet atmospheres,
we may spot someone else.
Thanks for listening!
I am futurist and science fiction author John Michael Godier currently in a reflective mood
over what it means to hit 100,000 subscribers.
Expect a special shortly, but in the meantime I recently did a sort of outside the box interview
with CuriousFM about the topic of decision making and other stuff you normally don’t
hear from me, link below, a very interesting cerebral channel to be sure and be sure to
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for regular, in-depth explorations into the interesting, weird and unknown aspects of
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