Seminar

The most mysterious star in the galaxy

December 13, 2016

Tabetha Boyajian

The NASA Kepler Mission provided 4 year long, ultra-precise light curves for over 150,000 stars - in hopes to find the sign of transiting planets. In Kepler's field of view was KIC 8462852, a star that citizen scientists identified to have irregularly shaped, aperiodic "dips" in flux of up to ~20 percent. Subsequent research on KIC 8462852 has shown that the star not only undergoes these short term dipping events, but also long term secular dimming -- all while having no signs of an infrared excess in its spectral energy distribution.  I will deliberate over the various circumstellar and interstellar scenarios put forth to interpret the system, most of which have fundamental problems explaining the data in hand. I will describe our team's plan to strategically monitor the star with LCO - undoubtably the most essential role in all future work to study this star. 

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