By their own admission, Anastasios “Andy” Tzanidakis and James Davenport are interested in unusual stars. The University of Washington astronomers were searching for 'stars behaving weirdly' when they were alerted by the Gaia survey about Gaia17bpp. The survey data showed that this star had graduall
An artistic rending of the star Gaia17bpp being partially eclipsed by the dust cloud surrounding a smaller companion star. Credit: Anastasios Tzanidakis
“We believe that this star is part of an exceptionally rare type of binary system, between a large, puffy older star — Gaia17bpp — and a small companion star that is surrounded by an expansive disk of dusty material,” said Tzanidakis, a UW doctoral student in astronomy. “Based on our analysis, these two stars orbit each other over an exceptionally long period of time — as much as 1,000 years. So, catching this bright star being eclipsed by its dusty companion is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Those observations, coupled with the Gaia data, showed that Gaia17bpp dimmed by about 4.5 magnitudes — or roughly 63 times. The star remained dim over the course of nearly seven years, from 2012 to 2019. The brightening that the Gaia survey had uncovered was the end of that seven-year dim. The two believe that Gaia17bpp is part of a rare type of binary star system, with a stellar companion that is — quite simply — dusty.
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