Strange Astronomical Observations that Defy Easy Explanation

Besides KIC 8462852, other strange anomalies crop up in astronomical observations that are hard to explain as naturally occurring. I thought I'd collect them in a new thread rather than muddy the KIC 8462852 thread.

These are two anomalies that caught my eye recently.

A star, HD 101065, that apparently harbours elements that should not exist in nature:


700+ stars have apparently just disappeared over 70 years:


Wikipedia has a list of stars whose brightness variation is strange:
List of stars that dim oddly - Wikipedia

These are really weird and while I don't like aliens-of-the-gaps explanations, I can't explain the observations in the two videos.

Are there any other similar observations that make you think WTF is going on out there?

 

You must hack my internet, I watch the same stuff!

 

Anton is great, isn't he. I also recommend John Michael Godier and Sabine Hossenfelder's channels. Jewels among much of the dross littering YouTube. I particularly hate reaction videos - they seem so lazy.

 

There was a “cavity” in the galaxy reported recently. There is something dragging stars in the Hyades….but all eyes need to be on Gliese 710. GAIA has Betelgeuse closer than Hipparchus did. Maybe Gliese 710 is a borderline brown dwarf closer in rather than a full star farther out?

 

Anton Petrov has made videos for all of those.

The cavity is the Per-Tau supershell, which is a supernova remnant between the Perseus and Taurus molecular clouds. It's thought to be about 10 million years old.

The massive object that disrupted the Hyades:

Gliese 710 (HIP 89825) is an orange K-type star, with 0.6 solar mass. We know its parameters really pretty well. It will pass close (between 9,000 and 14,000 astronomical units; 0.14 and 0.22 ly) to the Sun in 1.28 million years time.

Video about the redetermination of the distance of Betelgeuse:


Anything Anton produces is worth watching on YouTube and you can support his work on Patreon - something I would never do for reaction videos. He really does put a lot of effort into his content.

 

Sabine is one smart lady, but I had to initailly get over the cold German accent first! Anton must work his butt off reviewing the latest astronomical findings from the globe, but do we know why he is in Korea? Obviously you've seen Isaac Arthur?

 

I don't have a problem with Sabine's accent but then I have worked with many Europeans (and Americans). Anton is a maths and science teacher in a high school. I don't know how he finds the time. He sounds a little bit Russian but I think he is a Canadian citizen. I find Isaac Arthur's accent rather strange and difficult to follow, which is my problem not his.

Some other science and maths YouTubers I recommend are Scott Manley, Arvin Ash, Parth G, and Sixty Symbols. There are lots of other good ones though.

ETA: About a year old now but this video from John Michael Godier is very interesting:


Sabine Hossenfelder explains why the standard model of cosmology might be flawed:

 

I've also enjoyed watching Veritasium, (I think Dr Muller?) who has done some interesting vids about Godel using mathematics to prove mathematicss is incorrect, infinities and the 3x+1 problem. ButI also watch Star Trek commenatry wheras I could be doing more useful things for humanity!

 

Yeah, mathematics beyond a certain level of complexity is necessarily incomplete, which to me suggests it's a purely human invention and not intrinsic to the universe. Any apparent correspondence or correlation with reality is happenstance. Just my opinion...

 

Here's another weird observation from five years ago where anomalous pulses were identified using Fourier analysis in the spectra of 234 stars similar to the Sun.

The research papers are linked in the description to the video. I'm not sure what became of this study. Perhaps some systematic error was discovered in the analysis or a natural explanation was uncovered.

 

Guess the universe is a much stranger place than we think it is..

 

I think we have found the natural successor to Tom Lehrer.

 

Not an observational mystery but here is an interesting discussion about why receiving information from alien civilisations might represent a threat to us:

The next video is interesting and not just for mentioning the discovery of a meteorite that is older than the Sun or that the retrograde asteroid 2015 BZ509 might have originated around another star.

 

This may not be the most recantible observation, anyway;
there were evidentially ||| stars visible in the night sky,
using a streetlight, and a handheld mirror, and binoculars,
their were able to be viewed through dually magnifyed lenses.

Their corresponding levels brightness were:
--- the southernmost star being the brightest,
-- a western star being medium brightness,
- and another western star, that was obscured by trees, being the most dimly lit.

Due to the unsteadiness of the handheld instruments,
the stars' locations appeared to be unstable, exhibiting to-and-fro oscillation,
during that display of their visibility.

The ||| stars coordinates could be described to form a triangular pattern,
having been viewed from the perspective during this survey.
Would the trianglular shape of their coordinates pattern,
be considered: temporary, permanent,
undergoing an indefinite continuation, or an errant conclusion?

:|:EDIT:|:

 

How about getting a sky map app for your phone and trying to identify the object? There's an iPad app that allows you to identify objects by orienting the screen towards the sky. Similar apps might also be available for advanced smart phones. Mine doesn't have the required sensors. It'd be hard for anyone else to identify the likely objects from your description without knowing the date, time and location of the observation. Bright objects visible from city locations in the northern hemisphere are usually Venus, Jupiter, Sirius, Procyon, Vega, Deneb, Altair, Rigel, Betelgeuse, Arcturus, Aldebaran and the like. There are lots more bright stars visible in the southern sky.

 

TY! 4 the info
``````````````````​

 

Yeah, I don't want you to reveal any info about yourself. Just the latitude, longitude, date, and time would do. The geographical data need only be accurate to five degrees or so. One degree of latitude equals about 111 km. One degree of longitude is equivalent to about 4 minutes in time. The date and time can be out by 5 days and 20 minutes respectively.

 

-According to the website:
https://www.latlong.net/
-The water tower shown fenced off in the drawing,
corresponds to the water tower seen from above.
@#: 39.147777 ,,, -77.064888 ~~~
-The coordinates are searchable at:
https://gps-coordinates.org/
-The water tower referenced is actually on a site belonging to:
https://www.wsscwater.com/
-For reference, a list of water towers was not available at the URL,
at that website to search the specific destination of the operation.
-The parking lot also in the drawing was already mapped

-The sketch represents a timeframe within ~3 weeks or ~3 months ago,
I have no actual timestamp of the event,
although therefore "June,July,August" `021
would have been an approximation
-The drawing was not bolth sketched and observed simultaneously.

 

So the observation was made near Washington DC sometime this summer. That's not much use without knowing a more precise date and time of day. The Earth moves a quarter of the way round the Sun in three months. As seen from Washington DC, on July 8th 2021 at 10pm, Antares (α Scorpii) would be roughly due south with Arcturus (α Boötis) above Spica (α Virginis) to the southwest and Regulus (α Leonis) to the west. Jupiter was in Aquarius but not yet risen and Saturn was low in Capricornus to the south-southeast. An hour later, Jupiter would have risen in the south-southeast, Saturn would be more southeast and higher in the sky, and Regulus would have set. Venus and Mars were low down to the west-northwest, appearing to be very close to each other near conjunction (although this is an illusion as they just happened to be along the same line of sight). Venus would have been bright with an apparent magnitude of -3.89, Mars about 178 times dimmer with an apparent magnitude of 1.74.

I'm guessing you saw Antares, Arcturus and Spica but without better time and date estimates it's hard to tell. Arcturus is roughly just over twice as bright as each of Antares and Spica, although their magnitudes vary. Arcturus is very slightly red in colour, Antares is distinctly red (its name means "rival of Mars" and is actually a binary star), and Spica is blue-white (also being a binary star). The magnitude of both Antares and Spica varies - Antares more so than Spica. Over a human lifetime, the angular separation of these stars would not appear to change as viewed by the human eye. Over thousands of years, the angles would change noticeably with the motion of the stars in their individual orbits about the Galactic centre, as would the configurations of all the constellations. The positions of planets can change noticeably in a matter of days - the word planet derives from the ancient Greek "planetai" - "wanderers" or "planetes asteres" - "wandering stars".

Here's a couple of links where you can look up what stars and planets were visible from Washington DC at different dates and times by entering those data into the tools.

Night Sky Map & Planets Visible Tonight in Washington DC (timeanddate.com)
Venus - Interactive Sky Chart | TheSkyLive.com

Anyway, I'm not seeing the relevance to the topic of this thread as there's nothing apparently unusual. If it had been note-worthy, I'd expect someone to have kept a better record. There are three major airports near DC, not to mention military bases, so confusion with aircraft lights is also possible.