Dark Companion

I love when there is science and stuff that scientists and stuff can't figger out. Or they kinda know, but they still haven't got all the stuff...ya know, figgered out.

Say hello to the binary star system Epsilon Aurigae.

Normally in a binary star system, you get two stars of varying magnitude that orbit around a common center of mass.  Now, I don't know what any of that means, but usually you got two stars doing some kind of celestial boogie around each other.

But something different is going on with Epsilon Aurigae.  You see, this mother-fucker is an eclipsing binary system.  And that means that every 27 years, it gets eclipsed by...something.  Something real big and something real dark.  And these science guys don't really know what that large something is.  Sure, there are all kinds of theories.  A large semi-transparent star.  A black hole.  Your mother.

But mostly they think it a large disk of dust that blots out the sky for anywhere from 640-730 days every 27 years or so.  That doesn't seem likely.  I'm gonna still go with "your mother" as the answer.  But wait...that's only part of the story.  During the middle of the eclipse period there is a period of brightening.  Like there is a hole or something in the middle of the dark object.  And that hole, like your mother, is getting bigger as recent evidence suggests.  So now some of those eggheads think that there may be a planet or even a smaller star at the center of this massive dark cloud of dust.

Well, guess what is going on right now?  That's right.  Epsilon Aurigae has begun it's eclipse phase and space nerds all over the planet are just tugging at themselves with joy.  And they are looking for our help.  So if you fancy yourself an amateur astronomer go check out the Citizen Sky project and you join them over the next couple of years for a prolonged session of theoretical star-fucking.

Me?  Well, I don't fancy myself an amateur astronomer.  But I do fancy your mother.

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Note: Remember to play the Bug-Eyed Trivia Challenge every day. It's what Martin Luther King, Jr. would do.