Gazing into the inky expanse of space, we encounter countless stars, each with its own story. But nestled amongst the familiar and predictable, there exists a celestial oddball: KIC 8462852 , better known as Tabby's Star or the delightfully blunt "WTF Star" . This F-type main-sequence star, similar to our Sun but slightly larger, has become an enigma due to its bizarre dimming behavior. Unlike the well-understood dips caused by transiting planets, Tabby's Star exhibits dramatic and irregular drops in brightness, sometimes by a staggering 20%. This unpredictable dimming has astronomers scratching their heads and proposing a multitude of theories to explain this cosmic light show. The Usual Suspects: Why Tabby's Star Plays Hide and Seek Before diving into the fantastical, let's explore some more grounded possibilities for the erratic dimming: Planetary Leviathan on a Chaotic Orbit: Imagine a behemoth of a planet, 1000 times Earth's mass , with a wildly irr...
“The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can't imagine”