Researchers judge distant objects from observations and available data that impose on space models. But there are celestial bodies that do not fit into the usual parameters. Therefore, the star Tabbi continues to excite scientists' minds so far.
Twinkling Stars
It is important to begin with the fact that for terrestrial observers, starry flicker is a standard and customary process. In fact, we are talking about a random change in the level of the star. The main reason is the turbulent state of the earth's atmosphere.
A similar situation occurs only when a star is observed and does not touch the planets. The effect can be smoothed only when using large lenses, otherwise there is a risk to violate the accuracy of astronomical research.
It should be remembered that the flickering is not a star property (they shine quietly), but the result of a review of the night sky through the atmosphere of the home planet. Due to this, star colors also change.
Tabby Star
KIC 8462852 is a very unusual star living at a distance of 1,480 light years from our Sun in the territory of the constellation Cygnus. The first reviews began in 1890, but most of the known information came from the main and expanded mission of Kepler (2009-2013).
The first detailed description was presented by Tabeta Boyadjian, after which the object was nicknamed the star Tabbi. In 2015, she became actively interested in her because of unusual behavior. Kepler’s mission recorded a drop in light, which in most cases hints at the rotation of the planet around a star. Such events are repeated with fixed time intervals (the time of flight of the planet), but the star Tabbi is different. She was able to capture the drop in luminosity by 22%! But it is surprising that these moments were repeated with different time intervals (5-80 days). Naturally, this created a number of unusual hypotheses that attempt to explain the phenomenon.
Tabby Star Hypotheses:
Observation Error
This was the first and most reasonable assumption. Most likely, anomalies arose due to problems in the telescope, or the information was distorted during transportation to Earth. But further reviews and analysis have shown that this is not the case. It was also necessary to exclude possible internal stellar processes as a cause.
Dust ring
Perhaps the whole thing in circumstellar material that rotates around a star in the form of a disk. Then an irregular ring with small particles could unevenly diffuse light, creating a flickering effect with a decrease in brightness.
Star's age
Some have suggested that the star may be much younger than previously thought. So, around it could remain residual material from the formation. But spectroscopic observations found nothing of the kind.
Comet cloud
What if a cloud of decaying comets rotates around a star along an elliptical path? Then, Tabbie's star should have something like the Oort cloud, where stellar gravity attracted comets, which became an obstacle to the spectra. But many doubt that a particular theory could lead to a 22% reduction in luminosity.
Other theories
There were suggestions that the whole thing in the planetary debris left over from the collision of protoplanets. Perhaps the star itself could have broken the formed planet, whose fragments led to a temporary reduction in luminosity. Then the fragments had to rotate in an eccentric orbit, causing an increase in brightness 10,000 years ago. And now the star is trying to return to the usual glow.
Attractive Exotica
When the standard explanations ended, the researchers decided to turn to unusual options. It is because of this that the star Tabbi became popular not only among scientists, but also ordinary people.
This is a possible alien construction built around a star, such as the Dyson Sphere or any other designed large-scale structure. So, there is an option that the star Tabbi is a source of energy for some developed alien creatures.
But the scientific community is still skeptical about alien intervention, leaving this hypothesis for last. However, representatives of SETI (trying to find traces of extraterrestrial life and make contact) are set to study the star and search for similar objects with anomalous behavior.
Postscript
Researchers still do not know what is happening with the star Tabby. There are many theories, but most are not able to explain the 22% attenuation. Scientists find it difficult to cross out unusual explanations, so all they have to do is hope to use more powerful tools to get more information.
