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 (out of 79 total observation 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.