For the past year, researchers and journalists alike have been stoked, scared, and mystified by a bunch of weird light patterns coming from a star about 1,500 light years away. KIC 8462852, aka Tabby’s star, seemed to be dimming periodically, by as much as 20 percent — and for awhile the prevailing theory was that there was a gigantic alien megastructure orbiting the star. But now, it looks like there’s another, more plausible explanation: space junk.
A new paper argues that rather than massive alien satellites orbiting Tabby’s star, comets and planetoids are instead obscuring the star’s light periodically. The authors also point to a companion star, called E-companion, along the line of sight from NASA’s Kepler telescope that could be complicating our interpretation of the star’s light.
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