EPIC 204278916 is a

pre-main-sequence star A pre-main-sequence star (also known as a PMS star and PMS object) is a star in the stage when it has not yet reached the main sequence. Earlier in its life, the object is a protostar that grows by acquiring mass from its surrounding envelope of ...

, about five million years old with a spectral type of M1, implying a

red dwarf ''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. T ...

. It is part of the Upper Scorpius sub-group of the

Scorpius–Centaurus association The Scorpius–Centaurus association (sometimes called Sco–Cen or Sco OB2) is the nearest OB association to the Sun. This stellar association is composed of three subgroups (Upper Scorpius, Upper Centaurus–Lupus, and Lower Centaurus–Crux) ...

, and is in the constellation

Scorpius Scorpius is a zodiac constellation located in the Southern celestial hemisphere, where it sits near the center of the Milky Way, between Libra to the west and Sagittarius to the east. Scorpius is an ancient constellation that pre-dates the Gre ...

. The star is approximately the size of the Sun at , but is only half its mass () and a fraction of its luminosity (). This stellar object was first characterized by the 2nd

USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog The USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC) is an astrometric star catalog of the United States Naval Observatory United States Naval Observatory (USNO) is a scientific and military facility that produces geopositioning, navigation and timekeep ...

and the

Two Micron All-Sky Survey The Two Micron All-Sky Survey, or 2MASS, was an astronomical survey of the whole sky in infrared light. It took place between 1997 and 2001, in two different locations: at the U.S. Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins, Arizona, and ...

, and was further studied during the ''

Kepler Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws o ...

'' space telescope's extended ''K2'' mission Campaign 2 between 23 August and 13 November 2014.

Luminosity

In August 2016, a team of astronomers, led by Simone Scaringi of the

Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics is a Max Planck Institute, located in Garching, near Munich, Germany. In 1991 the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics split up into the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Ph ...

in Germany, reported that this

star has a resolved

circumstellar disc A circumstellar disc (or circumstellar disk) is a torus, pancake or ring-shaped accretion disk of matter composed of gas, dust, planetesimals, asteroids, or collision fragments in orbit around a star. Around the youngest stars, they are the reser ...

. Further, the research team observed unusual luminosity dimmings of up to 65% for 25 consecutive days (out of 79 total observation days). The variability in luminosity was highly periodic and attributed to stellar rotation. The researchers hypothesized that the ''irregular'' dimmings were caused by either a warped inner-disk edge or transiting cometary-like objects in either circular or eccentric orbits.

References

External links

EPIC Catalog at MAST
{{Portal bar, Astronomy, Space Astronomical objects discovered in 2016 Scorpius (constellation) M-type main-sequence stars Pre-main-sequence stars J16020757-2257467 Upper Scorpius

Luminosity

See also

References

External links