The universe is full of beautiful stars, and each one of them is distinctive. The reality is every star in the galaxy follows a similar route to producing the colorful twinkling.

According to a recent article, scientists have discovered a mysterious star located towards the center of our galaxy more than 25,000 light-years away, that appears to be only the second one of its kind. The star seems to be particularly dramatic and it is known as “exceptionally rare” because it kept on blinking on and off.

Observations by the scientists:

An international team of researchers observed the star, labeled VVV-WIT-08, and predict it is 100 times the size of the Sun. While numerous stars modify their brightness level because they are eclipsed by another star in the solar system, it’s strange for a star to have a period of several months of darkness and then light up again.

Furthermore, scientists observed that it is not the first blinking star. Multiple blinking stars were spotted with the VVV-WIT-08, but the researchers don’t have enough details on these.

University of Hertfordshire scientist Philip Lucas finds it hard to recognize the existence of giant “blinking stars”. Another study in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society reports that the “blinking star” is surrounded by an orbital companion, which might be another planet or a star. This companion surrounds the giant star, causing it to disappear and reappear in the sky when it passes across it. Researchers can only speculate on the origin of the elongated and large object between the earth and the distant star.

Scientists have been searching for explanations for the puzzling activities of the twinkling star. An analytical theory by an astronomer states that since the blinking star is located in the dense region of the galaxy, it’s possible that an anonymous dark object could have drifted in front of the giant star unintentionally, but demographically that’s unlikely to happen. However, another possibility says that the planet orbiting the star is surrounded by a huge dust cloud and that occasionally blocks the view almost entirely.

Presently, there appear to be multiple potential stars of this kind, and there are certainly more to be discovered but now the challenge is to find the potential hidden planet.