A team of US astronomers has likely solved the mystery of the unpredictable dimming of a distant star in the constellation Pisces, according to IBTTimes. Astronomers studying the star RZ Piscium, which is located 550 light-years away from Earth, have found evidence that the reason behind the random “winking” of the star could be huge orbiting clouds of gas and dust. It produces more energy at infrared wavelengths than other stars like our Sun, indicating that it is surrounded by a disk of warm dust. “The amount of lithium in a star’s surface declines as it ages,” said Joel Kastner, director of RIT’s Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics and the study’s co-author, said in a statement. “The fact that RZ Piscium hosts so much gas and dust after tens of millions of years means it’s probably destroying, rather than building, planets.”

Source: Pakistan Today December 23, 2017 10:52 UTC