SPACE: Why A Star is Winking at Us
Once or twice a day, a strange object in the Milky Way blinks at us. Now, astronomers think they know why. The object is called NGTS-7, and to most telescopes it looks like a single star. Researchers at the University of Warwick in England started watching because it seemed to be emitting flares, but on closer examination they noticed that its starlight dims briefly every 16.2 hours. When the astronomers zoomed in, they realized there are actually two similarly sized stars in the system, and that only one of them is dimming briefly in that way — suggesting that there’s … Read more