Astronomershave founda unusual genius that is dimming in a peculiar way , indicating it may have a gravid cloud of material orbiting it .
The star is called RIK-210 , and it is located 472 light - year from Earth . A squad of investigator lead by the California Institute of technology ( Caltech ) used data from NASA ’s Kepler scope to study the physical object , which was observed between August 22 and November 11 , 2014 , during its K2 commission . Their research is available in a paper onarXiv .
The team observed that the star dimmed for between 6 and 18 hours every 5.67 solar day , in fourth dimension with its gyration . These dips in light were between 5 and 20 percent of the star ’s full light – far large than would be await from a planet in orbit .
RIK-210 is only 5 to 10 million year old , half as massive as the Sun , and is about 1.24 times the size of the Sun . dim events like this have been see before , but normally around stars with a major planet - forming magnetic disk of material , which RIK-210 does not seem to have .
What ’s more , the dim consequence does not seem to have occurred before or after the K2 observations , based on data from other scope , indicate it only happened for a short period of time .
" We find transient , transit - similar dim case within the K2 clip series photometry of the young star RIK-210 , ” the scientists wrote in their newspaper . “ These dimming issue are variable in deepness , duration , and word structure . ”
The dips were seen every 5.6685 24-hour interval . David et al , 2016
To explain what ’s conk on , they ’ve ruled out a couple of options , namely another large object ( like another star or a brown dwarf ) eclipse the star from our decimal point of view , because they could not see any gravitational effects from such objective . They also ruled out feature on the surface of the hotshot , such as sunspot , being the lawsuit .
Instead , they paint a picture that a large swarm of textile may be orbiting the star . There are a number of possible primogenitor for this swarm , include the remnants of a late leg of planetary establishment , debris leave from a hit , or even a protoplanet surround by dust or gas with an elongate tail .
“ Speculative source of the obscuring material could be a magnetospheric swarm , an accumulation flow from residual ( yet undetected ) flatulence and detritus , end of the former stage of planet formation , the merchandise of a giant - shock character collision , an shroud protoplanet with an extended shadower , or one or more outlandish bodies undergoing periodic tidal flutter upon each periastron handing over , ” the researchers wrote .
They are now hoping for further studies of the lead , including more transit observations and also observing its emitted light , to fully understand what ’s going on .
