Mystery Star exhibits strange light patterns...

[Sydney Bloods]

It's boomers wife

too small.

 

[Catastic82]

too small.

That what she said

 

[TheKanga]

Tabby's star keeps getting weirder...

https://carnegiescience.edu/node/2102

The researchers analyzed further Kepler observations of the puzzling star and showed that in addition to its rapid unexplained brightness changes, the star also faded slowly and steadily during the four years it was watched by Kepler. Speculation to explain KIC 8462852’s dips in brightness has ranged from an unusually large group of comets orbiting the star to an alien megastructure. In general, stars can appear to dim because a solid object like a planet or a cloud of dust and gas passes between it and the observer, eclipsing and effectively dimming its brightness for a time. But the erratic pattern of abrupt fading and re-brightening in KIC 8462852 is unlike that seen for any other star.

“The steady brightness change in KIC 8462852 is pretty astounding,” said Montet. “Our highly accurate measurements over four years demonstrate that the star really is getting fainter with time. It is unprecedented for this type of star to slowly fade for years, and we don’t see anything else like it in the Kepler data.”
“This star was already completely unique because of its sporadic dimming episodes. But now we see that it has other features that are just as strange, both slowly dimming for almost three years and then suddenly getting fainter much more rapidly,” Simon added.

“It’s a big challenge to come up with a good explanation for a star doing three different things that have never been seen before,” Montet said. “But these observations will provide an important clue to solving the mystery of KIC 8462852.”

Scientists have learnt the star has actually shown increased dimming over the past 6 months, more than the previous 4 years of data.

The Dyson sphere is nearing completion

 

[Werewolf]

Update. Post from the Science board, courtesy of darth_timon

Excerpt from the article 'Alien megastructure' star dimming again:

The perplexing cosmic object known as "Boyajian's star" is once again exhibiting a mysterious pattern of dimming and brightening that scientists have tried to explain with hypotheses ranging from swarms of comets to alien megastructures.

Today (May 19), an urgent call went out to scientists around the world to turn as many telescopes as possible toward the star, to try and crack the mystery of its behavior.

"At about 4 a.m. this morning I got a phone call … that Fairborn [Observatory] in Arizona had confirmed that the star was 3 percent dimmer than it normally is," Jason Wright, an associate professor of astronomy at Pennsylvania State University, who is managing a study of Boyajian's star, said during a live webcast today at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT). "That is enough that we are absolutely confident that this is no statistical fluke. We've now got it confirmed at multiple observatories, I think."

 

[DIG]

Was just space dust causing all this they're saying now.

 

[Duritz]

Was just space dust causing all this they're saying now.

THe interstellar version of swamp gas

 

[mr bagcroft]

Any updates?
This is one of the most fascinating things I have come across...

 

[2006_Eagles]

Dyson Spheres confirmed!

 

[mr bagcroft]

Come on surely its not firggin "space dust" , Jesus Christ! What other credible reasons are being given?

This was addressed on a show about strange things in space the other night on foxtel.
Their explanation was of a orbiting planet destroyed by the star and orbiting in a bunch of chunks. Im not buying that either!