Dust Today, Gone Tomorrow: Astronomers Discover Houdini-Like Vanishing Act in Space

Originally posted by FractalChaos13242017


It's probably a stretch... but is it not possible for a giant rouge body, possibly even a brown dwarf to come passing by at a high speed and remove this dust cloud?

Good idea, but I would think that something massive enough to strip all the dust and gas would also affect the star itself, perhaps causing a change or at least a wobble in it's orbit or rotation. It would have to be there long enough to remove the dust from all around the star. This is what baffles me.

That's neat. But 6 months between pics means a lot can happen in that time.

Something like a massive electrical discharge could have caused the dust to collapse into much more condensed objects. Gravity isn't the only thing that would affect it, even though most astronomers only seem to think in terms of gravity. Think of how electrostatic precipitation works, but on a much more massive scale. Just need lots of potential to build up and some event to unbalance it. The material doesn't necessarily have to be gone from the orbit of the star, it's just not reflecting and scattering the light like it was.

If there were intervening frames to capture the event, I'd almost guess it looked similar to stuff is floating on water and a having a drop of detergent added. Of course it would have occured over those 6 months, but that's still pretty quick on a cosmic scale.

A UV or X-ray image of the star during that timeframe might have been interesting too. Shame they only saw the before and after.