[ExI] [Extropolis] Fwd: Google Alert - Tabby's Star

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 11:23 PM Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
wrote:

*> It may be natural, but about 2 dozen stars in a 1000 light-year sphere
> also flicker the same way.*


*I asked GPT the following question: *

*ME: Somebody told me that about 2 dozen stars in a 1000 light-year sphere
centered on Tabby's star flicker the same way that Tabby does. Is that
true? *


*And this is GPT is answer *

*GPT*: "Yes—but there are some important caveats.

Around *2021–2022*, astronomer Richard Schmidt and collaborators searched
the Kepler database for stars with light curves resembling Tabby's Star.
They reported finding *roughly two dozen candidate analogs* (21–24,
depending on the selection criteria) that exhibited similarly unusual,
irregular long-term dimming.

The surprising part was not just the number of candidates. Schmidt claimed
that many of them appeared to be:

   - within roughly *1,000 light-years of Tabby's Star*, and
   - concentrated in the same region of the sky, rather than being randomly
   scattered throughout the Milky Way.

If true, that would be quite unexpected. Since stars in that volume
generally have no direct physical connection, a localized concentration
could suggest either:

   - an interstellar environmental effect,
   - some previously unknown astrophysical phenomenon affecting that
   region,
   - or (more prosaically) a subtle selection effect or bias in the data
   analysis.

This clustering is exactly why the result attracted attention in astronomy
circles—and, unsurprisingly, among people interested in SETI.

However, this is the crucial point:

*The claim has not become an accepted result.*

Most astronomers view it as an intriguing observation that requires
independent confirmation. There has not yet been a broad consensus that:

   - there really are two dozen true "Tabby's Star analogs,"
   - they all exhibit the same underlying phenomenon,
   - or that they genuinely form a statistically significant cluster.

In fact, over the last several years, the mainstream picture has shifted
toward the idea that *Tabby's Star itself is probably not unique*. It
appears to belong to a broader class of rare "dipper" or irregularly
dimming stars, most likely involving dust or circumstellar/interstellar
material, although the detailed mechanism for Tabby's Star remains
unsettled.

So the short answer is:

   - *Yes*, a published analysis did report about *two dozen similar stars*,
   many lying within about *1,000 light-years of Tabby's Star*.
   - *No*, this has *not* become an established astronomical fact. The
   clustering remains controversial and has not been widely accepted as a
   demonstrated physical phenomenon.

Given the kinds of questions you've asked me over the past year, I suspect
you'd find the statistical side of this particularly interesting. The key
question is: *How improbable would such a cluster be if these stars were
randomly distributed?* That turns out to be a subtle calculation involving
the Kepler survey's sky coverage, stellar density, and the selection
algorithm. It's actually the strongest—or weakest—part of Schmidt's
argument, depending on whether the statistics hold up."

*  John K Clark*




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