Before I start I want
to mention something: It’s probably not aliens but this theory of presence of ET
can’t be overlooked completely. But the strange, flickering star identified as
KIC 8462852 still isn’t sitting right with astronomers. Actually, it just got a
lot stranger now. Ever since KIC 84628532 was detected in the Kepler Space
Telescope’s dataset, astronomers have mystified over what the actual heck might
be accountable for the star’s logic-defying light diming pattern. Over four years
of observational data, KIC 8462852 flickered completely unpredictably, its
light yield occasionally falling by as much as 20%. That’s extremely rare
stellar behavior, and it can’t be clarified by a transiting planet.
While Kepler only recorded few years of data on the star, astronomer Bradley Schaefer of Louisiana State University decided to study the photographic plates of the sky dating back to the late 19th century.
To his astonishment,
he erudite that over the last hundred years, KIC 8462852's light output has gradually
faded by roughly 19%, something that’s “totally extraordinary for any F-type
main sequence star.”
Tabetha Boyajian, a prime
researcher on the group that initially discovered the star, told New Scientist “This
presents some trouble for the comet hypothesis. We need more data through
continuous monitoring to figure out what is going on.”
Certainly, it’s tough
to visualize either aliens or natural celestial bodies diminishing a star’s
light output that much over such a tiny period of time.
It’ll be a while yet
before we’ve cracked the mystery of KIC 8462852. But we have to admit that that
this is what’s great about scientific discovery. Plainly all imaginable clarifications
are on the table at this point—and the truth about this tantalizing star might
be more interesting than we ever imagined.
