There are a lot of unexplained objects out there in the Universe, and the astronomer has just found a dusty object that may be causing a star to dim.
When we see something block out the light of a star, it's usually an asteroid or exoplanet. The object blocking the light from its star can't be explained by either option, because it's both more erratic and more persistent.
Astronomers can say for certain that the object is releasing a lot of dust.
TIC 400799224 is a star system that is 2,300 light-years away and was first detected by the TESS, which is looking for planets around other stars.
Astronomers accidentally stumbled across TIC 400799224 because of the dust cloud that caused its star to have a rapid drop in brightness over a period of hours, followed by several variations in brightness that could be interpreted as an eclipse.
The team found that something strange is happening after six years of data on the object.
TIC 400799224 is not in a single star system. It's in the vicinity of a pair of stars, one of which pulsates with a 19-day period.
The object that dims the light is erratic in its shape, depth, and duration, which is why the astronomer think it's most likely caused by a cloud of dust. It's not clear what that object is.
The amount of dust emitted is large, and if an object like the asteroid Ceres in our Solar System were to fall, it would only last about eight thousand years. Karen Collins is an astronomer at the Center.
The periodicity has remained strict and the object emitting the dust appears to have remained intact over the last six years.
It's not clear which of the two stars the mysterious object is in, which brings us to another odd thing about this discovery, the 25 percent dip in brightness was just a limited example of what TIC 400799224 can do.
The researchers explain in The Astronomical Journal that the dust the object emits blocks up to 75% of the light from its host star.
The researchers have a few leads after crunching the numbers. They suggest that the data best fits one of the stars being pre-main-sequence, which means the star is still gathering mass from its surrounding envelope of dust and gas.
There are three possible explanations for the weird dust in the study.
The team believes that the most likely explanation is that a planet-like object is hitting the star and blowing off a lot of dust. The periodicity of the dust cloud could be explained by this.
The team felt that the data was different enough that it wasn't likely what we're seeing here.
The team suggests that TIC 400799224 may be in a category of its own.
The good news is that anyone can use a decent telescope to look at the object, because it's bright enough to see.
We hope to find out more about what's going on with TIC 400799224 in the coming years.
The research has been published.
