Tabby's Star: Visualisation · Signals from the Periphery

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Scenario

Dust cloud

Band

Blue · 0.44 µm

Dip now

0.0 %

Max dip

0.0 %

Blue − Red

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KIC 8462852 · Tabby's Star
F3V · Teff 6750 K · 1.58 R☉
Cygnus · ~1470 ly (Gaia)
found by Planet Hunters volunteers, 2015
dips of up to 22%, no repeat, no period
the flux drops; what crosses the disk is the question

Feature

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Evidence

fact ⇄ what kind of claim · live

Kepler photometry: 1580 days, public on MAST

the dips are in the data · anyone can pull it

MEASURED

Depths and timings: D792 ~16%, D1519 ~22%

Boyajian et al. 2016 · deepest natural star dips known

MEASURED

2018 dips deeper in blue than red

Boyajian+ 2018, Deeg+ 2018 · the colour test

MEASURED

No radio, no laser, no infrared excess

Harp+ 2016, Schuetz+ 2016, Marengo+ 2015

MEASURED

This light curve: analytic dips on a flat baseline

occlusion + limb darkening · a faithful reconstruction

MODELLED

Circumstellar dust: chromatic, leading explanation

sub-micron grains transmit red, block blue

MODELLED

A Dyson swarm: opaque, achromatic, engineered

Wright+ 2016 framing · SETI came back empty

READING

View

What is crossing the star

MODELLED · circumstellar dust · the leading explanation

Wavelength · the decisive test

Fine dust scatters blue light more than red, so a dust dip is deeper in blue. A solid body, a planet or an engineered panel, blocks every colour equally. Switch bands and read the Blue − Red cell: that gap is how you tell dust from a disk.

Swarm build

Coverage of the disk18 %

how much of the star's face the panels hide. Dyson proposed collectors, not a shell; the dip depth is just the covering fraction. Active only for the Dyson swarm.

Overlays · Curve view

Montet & Simon secular fade

2017 ground-based dips (Elsie et al.)

Auto-play the transit

Readout · live

Deepest dip

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Blue depth

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Red depth

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Blue / Red

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Chromatic?

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Passes SETI?

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What is measured vs what is read

Measured: the Kepler light curve, the dip depths and timings, the 2018 result that the dips are deeper in blue, and the empty radio, laser and infrared searches. Modelled: this reconstruction, the dust optical model, the swarm geometry. Reading: which of dust, comets, a shattered planet or an engineered swarm you believe is doing it. The colour test favours fine dust; nothing here formally excludes a swarm, and this instrument takes no side.

Where this drawing takes liberties

The star's disk is drawn at a legible size and the occulters cross in seconds, not days. The light curve is real: it is computed by occulting a limb-darkened disk, and the full Curve view reproduces the published Kepler depths and timings (Boyajian et al. 2016). The colour effect is modelled from sub-micron grain scattering. What is invented is only the staging: the star does not really sit still while one tidy object crosses it once.

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drag = orbit · scroll = zoom · switch bands to run the colour test · in Curve view, click a dip