The Mystery Thing
It goes without saying that we mean our sun when we talk about something blotting out the sun. But our sun is only one among many in the vastness of the cosmos. Additionally, it's not the only one that disappears for unknown reasons.
Astronomers first noticed the star that is now known as VVV-WIT-08 in 2012. "What is this?" is indicated by the "WIT" portion. The star was gone for 200 days. Something completely obstructed the light. Then it came back. So, there was a barrier for 200 days. Since that time, it has never happened again, and scientists have been unable to pinpoint what caused it.
About 25,000 light years separate us from the star. Although it is 100 times bigger than our sun, it burns less hotly and brightly. The information gathered indicated that over those 200 days, a star was obscured by an object. That indicates that whatever it was substantial and larger than the star. Few star bodies can fit such requirements.
Additional investigation produced more queries. It was challenging to determine the star's actual size and distance. But they came to the conclusion that whatever was blocking it had to be in the star's orbit. All of their hypotheses, whether black holes, planets, or other stars, fail to adequately account for the observations.
