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We describe EPIC 205718330 and EPIC 235240266, two systems identified in the K2 data whose light curves contain episodic drops in brightness with shapes and durations similar to those of the young dipper stars, yet shallower by ~1-2 orders of magnitude. These little dippers have diverse profile shapes with durations of ~0.5-1.0 days and depths of ~0.1-1.0% in flux; however, unlike most of the young dipper stars, these do not exhibit any detectable infrared excess indicative of protoplanetary disks, and our ground-based follow-up spectra lack any signatures of youth while indicating these objects as kinematically old. After ruling out instrumental and/or data processing artifacts as sources of the dimming events, we investigate possible astrophysical mechanisms based on the light curve and stellar properties. We argue that the little dippers are consistent with transits of star-grazing exocomets, and speculate that they are signposts of massive non-transiting exoplanets driving the close-approach orbits.
We assess a physically feasible explanation for the low number of discovered (near-)grazing planetary transits through all ground and space based transit surveys. We performed simulations to generate the synthetic distribution of detectable planets b
Some of the most scientifically valuable transiting planets are those that were already known from radial velocity (RV) surveys. This is primarily because their orbits are well characterized and they preferentially orbit bright stars that are the tar
Exocomets are small bodies releasing gas and dust which orbit stars other than the Sun. Their existence was first inferred from the detection of variable absorption features in stellar spectra in the late 1980s using spectroscopy. More recently, they
In contrast to photometric transits, whose peak signal occurs at mid-transit due to occultation of the brightest region of the disk, polarimetric transits provide a signal upon ingress and egress due to occultation of the polarized stellar limb. Limb
The Oort cloud (OC) probably formed more than 4$,$Gyr ago and has been moving with the Sun in the Galaxy since, exposed to external influences, most prominently to the Galactic tide and passing field stars. Theories suggest that other stars might pos