File:PIA22081-KIC8462852-TabbysStar-UnevenDustRing-Illustration-20171004.png

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English: Images | October 4, 2017 - Tabby's Star (Illustration)[1]

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA22081

This illustration depicts a hypothetical uneven ring of dust orbiting KIC 8462852, also known as Boyajian's Star or Tabby's Star. Astronomers have found the dimming of the star over long periods appears to be weaker at longer infrared wavelengths of light and stronger at shorter ultraviolet wavelengths. Such reddening is characteristic of dust particles and inconsistent with more fanciful "alien megastructure" concepts, which would evenly dim all wavelengths of light.

By studying observations from NASA's Spitzer and Swift telescopes, as well as the Belgian AstroLAB IRIS observatory, the researchers have been able to better constrain the size of the dust particles. This places them within the range found in dust disks orbiting stars, and larger than the particles typically found in interstellar dust.

The system is portrayed with a couple of comets, consistent with previous studies that have found evidence for cometary activity within the system.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the Swift mission in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University in University Park, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Virginia. Other partners include the University of Leicester and Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the United Kingdom, Brera Observatory and the Italian Space Agency in Italy, with additional collaborators in Germany and Japan.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech in Pasadena, California. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

References

  1. Landau, Elizabeth (4 October 2017). Mysterious Dimming of Tabby's Star May Be Caused by Dust. NASA. Retrieved on 4 October 2017.
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Source https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA22081.jpg
Author NASA/JPL-Caltech
This image or video was catalogued by Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: PIA22081.

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Public domain This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
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4 October 2017

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