10 Strangest Stars in the Sky

Some stars do not simply shine, fade, or die on schedule. One giant near the centre of the Milky Way lost about ninety-seven percent of its near-infrared light as something unknown crossed our line of sight. Betelgeuse darkened beneath a veil made from its own expelled material. Epsilon Aurigae disappears behind a vast disk. Elsewhere, a star's strange chemistry, a long-lived explosion, a surviving remnant, and two disputed disappearances force astronomers to ask a more useful question than "what went wrong?" This long space documentary follows ten documented stellar mysteries through the places where light can change: inside a star, in an orbit, in dust and debris, or in the measurement itself. From a near-erased giant to a failed-supernova candidate, these are not one cosmic phenomenon. They are ten different routes into darkness, and each leaves a different clue about where the missing light went. Chapters: 00:00:00 The Fading Star 00:02:43 The Vanishing Giant 00:13:46 Betelgeuse's Great Dimming 00:24:19 Epsilon Aurigae Eclipse 00:33:18 Przybylski's Strange Spectrum 00:42:31 The Ancient Star 00:51:27 The Repeating Explosion 01:02:32 The Surviving Remnant 01:10:39 The Escaping Stellar Core 01:19:47 The Missing Spectrum 01:28:37 The Disappearing Supergiant 01:39:47 Tracking a Strange Star 01:51:15 The Light Changed