Tabby’s Star continues to make news. This time WaPo is reporting that the odd visuals coming from Tabby’s may indicate dust:
Artist’s conception of Tabby’s Star.
Source: Wikipedia
Whatever substance exists between us and Tabby’s Star blocks more blue light than red light, as Boyajian, Ellis, Wright and other researchers reported in a study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Wednesday. Planets cannot explain the dips. “If you have something that is completely opaque like a planet, you would expect all the colors of the light to be blocked out at the same levels,” Boyajian said. Likewise, the discovery also rules out alien industry.
Dust is one of the few explanations this observation does not eliminate. “The selective absorption of blue light has to point to dust,” Ellis said. “Certainly dust is the culprit.” Very small particles could block blue light’s shorter wavelengths while allowing red light, which has longer wavelengths, to escape.
“It has the typical signature of dust,” Boyajian said.
But the mystery is not over.
Yet even in space dust, there is mystery. If it is dust, the dust cloud has not spread far beyond its point of origin, the authors noted in the paper. A ring of dust around the star would constantly block starlight rather than dim light in bouts.
The artist’s conception, above, suggests a simple ring, which implies the ring is at a 90° angle to us. I wonder if it could actually be a shell or sphere of dust, instead.
Reality is so much more fun than self-delusion, I gotta say. Can’t wait for the next report.
