English

KIC 8462852: Will the Trojans return in 2021?

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2017-09-29 v3

Abstract

KIC 8462852 stood out among more than 100,000 stars in the Kepler catalogue because of the strange features of its light curve: a wide, asymmetric dimming taking up to 15 per cent of the light at D793 and a period of multiple, narrow dimmings happening approximately 700 days later. Several models have been proposed to account for this abnormal behaviour, most of which require either unlikely causes or a finely-tuned timing. We aim at offering a relatively natural solution, invoking only phenomena that have been previously observed, although perhaps in larger or more massive versions. We model the system using a large, ringed body whose transit produces the first dimming and a swarm of Trojan objects sharing its orbit that causes the second period of multiple dimmings. The resulting orbital period is T12T\approx12 years, with a semi-major axis a6a\approx6 au. Our model allows us to make two straightforward predictions: we expect the passage of a new swarm of Trojans in front of the star starting during the early months of 2021, and a new transit of the main object during the first half of 2023.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1705.08427,
  title  = {KIC 8462852: Will the Trojans return in 2021?},
  author = {Fernando J. Ballesteros and Pablo Arnalte-Mur and Alberto Fernandez-Soto and Vicent J. Martinez},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.08427},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

5 pages, 2 figures. v3: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

R2 v1 2026-06-22T19:56:52.159Z