Astronomers have discovered a massive 'blinking' star at the Milky Way's center, which is more than 25,000 light-years distant.

VVV-WIT-08 Star

The star VVV-WIT-08 was spotted by an international team of astronomers to be dimming by a factor of 30 and practically disappearing from the sky. While many stars alter in brightness when they pulse or are overshadowed by another star in a binary system, it's extremely unusual for a star to dim over several months before brightening again.

VVV-WIT-08 is thought to be part of a new type of "blinking giant" binary star system, in which a massive star 100 times the size of the Sun gets obscured every few decades by an as-yet-undiscovered orbiting partner. The companion, which might be another star or planet, is encircled by an opaque disc that obscures the huge star, causing it to vanish and reappear in the sky. The research was published in the Royal Astronomical Society's Monthly Notices.

Dr. Leigh Smith of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy headed the research team, including scientists from the Universities of Edinburgh, Hertfordshire, Poland's University of Warsaw, and Chile's Universidad Andres Bello.

"It's incredible that we just saw a dark, huge, and elongated object pass between us and the distant star, and all we can do now is conjecture," said co-author Dr. Sergey Koposov of the University of Edinburgh.

Related Article: Powerful Radio Bursts to Distant Galaxies' Spiral Arms Tracked Down by the Hubble Space Telescope

Was it Obstructed?

Because the star is in a congested part of the Milky Way, the researchers wondered if an unknown dark object may have accidentally passed in front of the massive star. However, simulations revealed that for this scenario to be plausible, there would have to be an implausibly vast amount of dark bodies drifting around the galaxy.

Epsilon Aurigae

Another similar star system has been known for a long time. Every 27 years, the big star Epsilon Aurigae is partially overshadowed by a massive dust disc, though only by around 50%. A second example, TYC 2505-672-1, was discovered a few years ago and presently holds the record for the longest orbital period in an eclipsing binary star system-69 years-a record that VVV-WIT-08 is vying for.

In addition to VVV-WIT-08, the UK-based team discovered two more of these strange massive stars, indicating that this might be a new class of "blinking giant" stars for astronomers to examine.

Space Research

VVV-WIT-08 was discovered by the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey (VVV), a project that has been observing the same one billion stars for nearly a decade to look for examples with varying brightness in the infrared part of the spectrum using the British-built VISTA telescope in Chile and operated by the European Southern Observatory.

Professor Philip Lucas of the University of Hertfordshire, one of the project's co-leaders, said, "We occasionally come across variable stars that defy categorization and are labeled as 'what-is-this?' or 'WIT' objects. We have no idea how these flashing behemoths came to be. After so many years of planning and accumulating data, it's thrilling to witness such breakthroughs from VVV."

While VVV-WIT-08 was identified using VVV data, the star's dimming was also noticed by the University of Warsaw's Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), a long-running observation effort. OGLE makes more observations, but they are closer to the visible spectrum. These frequent observations were crucial for modeling VVV-WIT-08, as they revealed that the huge star diminished in both visible and infrared radiation by the same amount.

Star Systems

There seems to be roughly a half-dozen known possible star systems of this sort, all of which feature huge stars and enormous, opaque discs. "There are undoubtedly more to be discovered," Smith said. "The question now is determining what the secret partners are and how they got to be ringed by discs despite circling so distant from the huge star." "We could learn something new about how these sorts of systems grow as a result of this."

Also Read: Potential Faster-Than-Light-Space Travel Facts: Alcubierre's Warp, the Key To Interstellar Travels?

For more Space news, don't forget to follow Nature World News!