In 2015, an astrophysicist discovered that the star would undergo irregular dips in brightness over a period of days or weeks.
Astronomer's first observed Tabby's Star, otherwise known as KIC 8462852, in the 1890s. But in 2015, Tabetha Boyajian, an astrophysicist from Louisiana State University, discovered something unusual—the star's brightness would dip irregularly over a period of days or weeks.
One of the hypotheses that was put forward states that the reductions in light are being caused by a cloud of disintegrating comets orbiting the star. Other scientists even suggested that the existence of 'alien megastructure' around the star could be responsible. Now, a team of scientists from Columbia University have proposed a new explanation based on astronomical models. They say the dimming is being caused by a melting exomoon shedding dust and debris, which is then accumulating around the star."The exomoon is like a comet of ice that is evaporating and spewing off these rocks into space," Brian Metzger, an author of the study from Columbia University, said in a statement.
The teams models naturally result in the"orphaned exomoons ending up on [highly eccentric] orbits with precisely the properties previous research had shown were needed to explain the dimming of Tabby's star," Miguel Martinez, another author of the study from Columbia, said in the statement."No other previous model was able to put all these pieces together."
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