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(Image: GETTY/SIMONMONTET)

The strangest star in our galaxy, KIC 8462852, or Tabby’s star for short, has baffled scientists since it was observed dimming 1,480 light-years away.

It appeared to be fading in a way that looked as though its light energy was being sucked from it – sparking theories that a form of life has placed a massive megastructure around it to harness it for fuel.

Scientists were quick to dismiss the claims at first but now a ground-breaking study has been published – suggesting something very mysterious is going on.

It claims Tabby’s star has been fading slowly then suddenly very rapidly over a four-year observation, scientists from California Institute of Technology revealed.

And while it might sound like a whole lot of fuss over a dimming star.

No others are behaving like Tabby’s.

(Image: SIMONMONTET)

Ben Montet, who has been monitoring the star through the NASA Kepler telescope said: “Our highly accurate measurements over four years demonstrate that the star really is getting fainter with time.

”It is unprecedented for this type of star to slowly fade for years, and we don’t see anything else like it in the Kepler data."

Josh Simon, from the Carnegie Institute for Science, said there are unique features to Tabby’s star that mark it out from the rest.

"This star was already completely unique because of its sporadic dimming episodes.

"But now we see that it has other features that are just as strange, both slowly dimming for almost three years and then suddenly getting fainter much more rapidly."

A preview was released in August with the official paper published in the Astrophysical Journal on Tuesday.

It concludes that there is no known natural causes to explain the phenomenon.

"It’s a big challenge to come up with a good explanation for a star doing three different things that have never been seen before," Montet said.

"But these observations will provide an important clue to solving the mystery of KIC 8462852."

Ecstatic alien-seekers claimed it could be a 'Dyson Sphere' - a hypothetical megastructure that wraps around a star to harness its power output – prompting many to speculate highly intelligent life 1,480 light-years away could be responsible.