Were All Dooomed :P

the vacuum of space!

Get your yellow card warmed up, Mike.

All sounds feasible… if a little boring

I've been working on a theory that these irregular light curves are caused by alien squeegee merchants jumping in and 'cleaning' the Kepler telescope in the hope of earning a few bucks. And now, after exhaustive research, I think I've found some evidence.

Red Card NOW.

Red Card NOW.

Oh that's harsh, Brian...I dont think you deserve that! 😀

Although Andy's theory is quite sound albeit very worrying if true, I find the gravitation darkening theory very interesting. I never heard of it before but makes a lot of sense. I've been reading a bit more on it on other sites like this wiki which sums it up in a palatable way:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_darkening

So what we should now do is study all those stars with gravitation darkening/brightening properties which apparently includes Regulus and look out for the same kind of phenomena.

alien squeegee merchants jumping in and ‘cleaning’ the Kepler telescope

These guys are clearly charlatans.

Anyone who knows anything about cleaning a telescope mirror knows that you shouldn't put a cleaning cloth anywhere near the surface, as the surface of the mirror will be scratched.

Disgraceful behaviour if true 😉

Anyone who knows anything about cleaning a telescope mirror knows that you shouldn’t put a cleaning cloth anywhere near the surface

Like most squeegee merchants, they don't hope that you'll pay them for cleaning your telescope - but rather, that you'll pay them to go away and not clean your telescope!