The mystery of the so-called “alien megastructure” star, just got deeper as another study has discounted the hypothesis that the authors of the original paper on this star had felt was the most likely explanation for the mysterious dimming of the star that was detected.
The star, officially know as KIC 8462852 – and also referred to informally as “Tabby’s Star” after the astronomer who discovered it, Tabetha Boyajian of Yale University – has previously been reported on Science Rocks My World (This Mysterious Star is Baffling Astronomers, Research of Mysterious Dimming Star Rapidly Moves to Next Phase, Search for Intelligent Life Around “Megastructure Star” Inconclusive – So Far, More News from NASA on the Mysterious “Megastructure Star”, and More Studies, But Still No Sign of Life Around ‘Megastructure Star’).
In the latest study, astronomer Bradley Schaefer of Louisiana State University studied almost a century’s worth of astronomical photographic plates that had been digitally scanned into a Harvard University archive. He was looking for a signal that would be similar to what the researchers had originally detected, but did not any evidence of that. This means that it’s not only unlikely that the the unusual dimming detected by the original research team is caused by alien megastructures, but also that the “cloud of comets” hypothesis put forward by the Yale astronomers is probably also unlikely.
However, the star had piqued his curiousity, so he took another look, and he found something very unusual about the star. Continue reading to learn this latest oddity of Tabby’s star.
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