ConceptsLight curve
Concept · astronomy · in 3 mysteries
Light curve
A star's brightness plotted against time.
1I/'OumuamuaThe record of how bright an object was at each moment of observation. Its shape, depth, timing and colour dependence are what every account of a dimming star has to reproduce: a planet gives a flat-bottomed dip at fixed intervals, dust a ragged one that is deeper in blue light. The arguments over Tabby's star are arguments about its light curve.
Where it comes up
HD 139139, the "Random Transiter"
Finds transit-like dips of 0.75–8 hours in a light curve, measures how many K2-like dips the data could have caught, and calibrates false alarms on the same data.
Single-event dip search with injection-recovery and fair nullsTen known dippers diluted by a factor of 15 do not resemble this light curve.The dips were first seen in the Kepler pipeline light curve and analysed in the independent K2SFF reduction.TESS Sector 91 full-frame-image light curves at the position of HD 139139 (2025)K2 Campaign 15 light curves of EPIC 249706694 (pipeline, K2SFF and EVEREST)
Tabby's star (KIC 8462852)
Joins DR7's per-exposure colour term to a star's light curve, classes plates by DASCH's colour-term bands, and asks whether a long-term offset survives on good-blue plates alone and whether residuals track the colour…
Colour-term stratification of a DASCH DR7 long-term offsetObserver-offset ensemble reduction of the AAVSO recordSliding-box dip search with injection-recovery for TESS light curvesMatched-comparison century-slope test for DASCH light curvesASAS-SN image-subtraction reconciliation: fade slopes, catalogue comparison, camera tie-in and depression checkNo known or proposed stellar phenomenon explains all aspects of the light curve.
Methods that use it 6
Single-event dip search with injection-recovery and fair nulls
MTHHD 139139, the "Random Transiter"
Colour-term stratification of a DASCH DR7 long-term offset
MTHTabby's star (KIC 8462852)
Observer-offset ensemble reduction of the AAVSO record
MTHTabby's star (KIC 8462852)
Sliding-box dip search with injection-recovery for TESS light curves
MTHTabby's star (KIC 8462852)
Matched-comparison century-slope test for DASCH light curves
MTHTabby's star (KIC 8462852)
MTH
Cite it
Mysteries Department. (2026). Light curve [Concept CPT0DECW02VSSXN]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/CPT0DECW02VSSXN
@misc{mysteriesdept_cpt0decw02vssxn,
title = {Light curve},
author = {{Mysteries Department}},
year = {2026},
note = {Concept, catalog key CPT0DECW02VSSXN},
url = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/CPT0DECW02VSSXN}
}