Remember KIC 8462852, that weird star from eight months ago? Corey Powell on Discover’s Out There blog interviews scientist Tabetha Boyajian who led the discovery, and her plans for continuing research, funded through Kickstarter:
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The plan is to observe the star through a full calendar year at the [private] Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT). We have the funds to cover that, and a little bit more. We’re observing now, running off time LCOGT has gifted us, 200 hours there. At the end of the summer, when the Kickstarter funds get transferred, we’ll be able to set up the process through August and probably through December of 2017.We want to see the star’s brightness dip again—it’s as simple as that. When it dips, how long the dips are, if there are many dips, all of the stuff relevant to any theory that’s on the table. Also, we’ll be able to get more detailed observations of whatever stuff is passing in front of the star, because we have a system to notify us when it’s not at its normal brightness. LCOGT is set up so we can get a spectrum as soon as that trigger happens, and also more intense observations.
She also discusses the pitfalls of government funded science in situations such as this.
[EDIT: 5/31/2017 for better layout]
