Star struck.

Despite a new analysis of data from the Kepler Space Telescope, the slow-dimming and sporadic flickering of Tabby's star remains a mystery, Christopher Crockett reported in "Fading star still baffles astronomers" (SN: 9/17/16, p. 12).

Walt Davis wondered if the dimming could be caused by the star orbiting a black hole. "As the star moves closer to alignment behind [the black hole] ... the star's light rays are being more and more bent away from us," he wrote.

"As weird as this star is, a black hole is probably not the culprit," Crockett says. Astronomers would be able to detect the star's orbital motion if it were orbiting a black hole, but the star appears to stay put. "And if gravity of a companion black hole was occasionally bending the starlight directed toward Earth, it would make the star appear brighter, not darker," he says.