What do you think of the suddenly disappearing stars and twinkling stars?

A strange star flickering in the center of the Milky Way has attracted scientists' attention

An artist's depiction of a massive star and a companion star surrounded by debris could explain strange observations of an object known as VVV-WIT-08.

(Image credit: Amanda Smith)

It's always a good sign when astronomers are outspoken about how observations bother them. One such puzzling target, discovered by a project called VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV for short), appears to be only the second of its kind known to scientists, according to new research, and it seems particularly striking. That's the conclusion of a team of scientists who spotted a bright star disappearing almost before their eyes.

"Occasionally we discover variables that don't fit into any established categories, and we call them 'what-is-this-thing?' or 'WIT objects,'" co-author Philip Lucas, an astronomer at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. "We don't really know where these blinking giants come from. It's exciting to see these discoveries from the VVV project after so many years of planning and collecting data."

The team of astronomers focused on observing an object called VVV-WIT-08, as it was discovered during the survey. This strange sight is located in the direction of the center of the Milky Way, more than 25,000 light-years from Earth, and the researchers saw them not only through the VVV project, but also through the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE).

Following further measurements, scientists now suspect that the object is a massive star, 100 times more massive than the Sun, which is periodically obscured by a smaller companion star surrounded by an opaque disk.

Scientists don't yet know exactly what that smaller object is.

"It is amazing that we have just observed a dark, massive, elongated object passing between us and this distant star, and we can only guess at its origin," co-author Sergey Koposov, an astronomer at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, said in a statement.

The observations of VVV-WIT-08 marked the second time scientists have seen this particular pattern; the brightness of a massive star called Epsilon Aurigae halves every 27 years as dust clouds pass between the observer and the star. Another example is a dimming every 69 years, and the researchers studying VVV-WIT-08 have so far discovered two other such strange objects, which they call "flashing giants."

This brings the total number of observed objects to five, although scientists expect others to be detected.

"There are certainly more to be discovered, but the challenge now is to figure out what the hidden companions are and how they are surrounded by a disk despite orbiting so far from the giant star," lead author Ray Smith, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, said in the statement. "In doing so, we may learn something about how such systems evolve."

Related knowledge

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfectly round ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, and radiates energy primarily in the form of visible light, ultraviolet, and infrared radiation. It is the most important source of energy for life on Earth.

Epsilon Aurigae is a multiple star system in the northern constellation of Aurigae. It is an unusual eclipsing binary system consisting of an F0 supergiant star and a companion, which is usually thought to be a large dark disk orbiting an unknown object, possibly a binary system consisting of two small B-type stars. The distance to the system is still a topic of debate, but data from the Gaia spacecraft puts it at about 1350 ± 300 light years from Earth.

Epsilon Aurigae is a multiple star system in the northern constellation of Aurigae. It is an unusual eclipsing binary system consisting of an F0 supergiant star and a companion, which is usually thought to be a large dark disk orbiting an unknown object, possibly a binary system consisting of two small B-type stars. The distance to the system is still a topic of debate, but data from the Gaia spacecraft puts it at about 1350 ± 300 light years from Earth.

BY:Meghan Bartels

FY: Shark Chili

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