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Do the dips still occur?

Asked 26 Oct 2026 by ·Part of Are the 28 dips real changes in starlight, or an instrumental effect?·3 answers·0·0 following
Three answers, none aheadNone is ahead yet. See what would settle it.

Where it stands

Three answers have been proposed. None is ahead on the evidence yet. Three are still possible. Of the one narrower question under it, none is answered yet.

Why it matters

Only one observing season exists⁠[1]. TESS observed the field in 2025⁠[2], and whether its precision suffices for 200 ppm dips at this brightness has not been reported.

Answers 3

None of these.
Not tested enough to call either way
Evidence: none yet
Still possible
Evidence: 1 for, 1 against
Still possible
The dipping was an episode in 2017 that may not recur.
Not tested enough to call either way
Evidence: none yet
Still possible

What would settle it

  1. Dedicated monitoring that resolves the two stars (3.3″ apart): at least 2–3 weeks at about 50 ppm on 2-hour timescales. At the K2 rate, two weeks gives about 5 expected dips, against 0.3–0.7 for TESS Sector 91.
  2. Rerun the TESS injection-recovery on any new sector of the field (or a future TESS extended-mission visit) with the published scripts; report expected detections before looking at the result.

History

  1. Rappaport et al. puts forward: the dipping is a lasting property of the system and recurs in any long enough observation.
  2. Rappaport et al. puts forward: the dipping was an episode in 2017 that may not recur.
  3. Huang et al.: one marginal dip-like event in TESS Sector 91 at BTJD 3778.55For: The dipping is a lasting property of the system and recurs in any long enough observation.
  4. Alonso et al.: cHEOPS saw no dips in 12.75 days in 2021–2022Against: The dipping is a lasting property of the system and recurs in any long enough observation.
  5. Space Telescope Science Institute: one marginal dip-like event in TESS Sector 91 at BTJD 3778.55For: The dipping is a lasting property of the system and recurs in any long enough observation.
  6. Session 1: took the question up again, ran one test, found two results bearing on its answers and worked on one of its sub-questions
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