'Alien Megastructure' Star Keeps Getting Stranger

Newly analyzed observations by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope show that the star KIC 8462852 — whose occasional, dramatic dips in brightness still have astronomers scratching their heads — has also dimmed overall during the last few years. "The steady brightness change in KIC 8462852 is pretty astounding," study lead author Ben Montet, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in a statement. KIC 8462852 hit the headlines last September, when a team of astronomers led by Tabetha Boyajian of Yale University announced that the star had dimmed dramatically several times over the past few years — in one case, by a whopping 22 percent.