A comet swarm can’t explain that 'alien megastructure' star after all
The weirdest star just got even weirder.
BEC CREW 18 JAN 2016
Back in October, astronomers discovered a strange pattern of light near a distant star called KIC 8462852 that no one could explain. When a planet orbits a star, the star’s brightness will usually dip by just 1 percent, but KIC 8462852 has been experiencing dips of up to 22 percent, which suggests that something very, very big is zooming past.
The best explanation we had was that a huge mass of comets has been erratically orbiting KIC 8462852, kicking up enough dust to dim its light to such a degree. But a new analysis of the last 100 years of the star’s history has rendered this hypothesis just as implausible as any other.
http://www.sciencealert.com/a-comet-swarm-can-t-explain-that-alien-megastructure-star-after-all