KIC 8462852 Faded at an Average Rate of 0.165+-0.013 Magnitudes Per Century From 1890 To 1989

TL;DR

This study presents a century-long analysis of KIC 8462852's brightness, revealing a significant and unprecedented gradual dimming trend that complements its known short-term dips, suggesting a continuous underlying physical process.

Contribution

First long-term photographic light curve of KIC 8462852 confirming a persistent dimming trend over a century, supporting ongoing physical mechanisms behind its unusual variability.

Findings

KIC 8462852 faded by 0.193 mag from 1890 to 1989

The star's dimming rate is 0.165 mag per century

Century-long dimming is unprecedented among F-type main sequence stars

Abstract

KIC8462852 is a completely-ordinary F3 main sequence star, except that the light curve from Kepler shows episodes of unique and inexplicable day-long dips with up to 20% dimming. Here, I provide a light curve of 1338 Johnson B-band magnitudes from 1890 to 1989 taken from archival photographic plates at Harvard. KIC8462852 displays a secular dimming at an average rate of 0.164+-0.013 magnitudes per century. From the early-1890s to the late-1980s, KIC8462852 faded by 0.193+-0.030 mag. The decline is not an artifact because nearby check stars have closely flat light curves. This century-long dimming is unprecedented for any F-type main sequence star. Thus the Harvard light curve provides the first confirmation (past the several dips seen in the Kepler light curve alone) that KIC8462852 has anything unusual. The century-long dimming and the day-long dips are both just extreme ends of a spectrum of timescales for unique dimming events. By Ockham's Razor, two such unique and similar effects are very likely produced by one physical mechanism. This one mechanism does not appear as any isolated catastrophic event in the last century, but rather must be some ongoing process with continuous effects. Within the context of dust-occultation models, the century-long dimming trend requires 10^4 to 10^7 times as much dust as for the deepest Kepler dip. Within the context of the comet-family idea, the century-long dimming trend requires an estimated 648,000 giant comets (each with 200 km diameter) all orchestrated to pass in front of the star within the last century.