EPIC 204278916

EPIC 204278916 is a pre-main-sequence star, about five million years old with a spectral type of M1, implying a red dwarf. It is part of the Upper Scorpius sub-group of the Scorpius–Centaurus association, and is in the constellation Scorpius. The star is approximately the size of the Sun at, but is only half its mass and a fraction of its luminosity.
This stellar object was first characterized by the 2nd USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog and the Two Micron All-Sky Survey, and was further studied during the Kepler space telescope's extended K2 mission Campaign 2 between 23 August and 13 November 2014.

Luminosity

In August 2016, a team of astronomers, led by Simone Scaringi of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, reported that this red dwarf star has a resolved circumstellar disc. Further, the research team observed unusual luminosity dimmings of up to 65% for 25 consecutive days. The variability in luminosity was highly periodic and attributed to stellar rotation. The researchers hypothesized that the irregular dimmings were caused by either a warped inner-disk edge or transiting cometary-like objects in either circular or eccentric orbits.