"Extraterrestrial megastructures" - an exobiologist's explanation for very weird star

shira

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
9,500
6
81
Finally, extraterrestrial intelligent life. At least that's the explanation given for the very, very unusual dimming behavior of KIC 8462852, star in the Milky Way.

Boyajian, the Yale Postdoc who oversees Planet Hunters, recently published a paper describing the star’s bizarre light pattern. Several of the citizen scientists are named as co-authors. The paper explores a number of scenarios that might explain the pattern—instrument defects; the shrapnel from an asteroid belt pileup; an impact of planetary scale, like the one that created our moon.

The paper finds each explanation wanting, save for one. If another star had passed through the unusual star’s system, it could have yanked a sea of comets inward. Provided there were enough of them, the comets could have made the dimming pattern.

But that would be an extraordinary coincidence, if that happened so recently, only a few millennia before humans developed the tech to loft a telescope into space. That’s a narrow band of time, cosmically speaking.

And yet, the explanation has to be rare or coincidental. After all, this light pattern doesn’t show up anywhere else, across 150,000 stars. We know that something strange is going on out there.

When I spoke to Boyajian on the phone, she explained that her recent paper only reviews “natural” scenarios. “But,” she said, there were “other scenarios” she was considering.

Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish an alternative interpretation of the light pattern. SETI researchers have long suggested that we might be able to detect distant extraterrestrial civilizations, by looking for enormous technological artifacts orbiting other stars. Wright and his co-authors say the unusual star’s light pattern is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures,”
perhaps stellar-light collectors, technology designed to catch energy from the star.

“When [Boyajian] showed me the data, I was fascinated by how crazy it looked,” Wright told me. “Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build.”
 

Paratus

Lifer
Jun 4, 2004
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It's one hypothesis among many. But it is a very interesting star system. There's an OT thread about it as well.

Apparently Jupiter sized planets generally block about 1% of the light of the parent star on a regular basis. This star has had up to 22% of it's light irregularly blocked.

Maybe when James Webb is up we can get a better look.
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
34,521
8,590
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Keep It Simple Stupid!
The light is blocked by an object between us and the star.

An alien superstructure is the least likely option.
A planetary sized asteroid belt is the most reasonable explanation.
 

trenchfoot

Lifer
Aug 5, 2000
15,273
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I'd personally like to know what Rush Limbaugh has to say about this.

On topic, this is something that's worth keeping tabs on. Who knows what will be found. That's the part I like; the anticipation.
 

Knowing

Golden Member
Mar 18, 2014
1,522
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“Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build.”


I don't understand why people expect things from aliens. If they exist, they're aliens. 200 years ago, native populations that hadn't been visited by developed (modern sense, and only relatively) societies asked if their Earth bound visitors were from outer space. We have even less of a grasp of the capacities, limitations, beliefs, etc. that govern extra terrestrial aliens.
 

CZroe

Lifer
Jun 24, 2001
24,195
857
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It would be "an extraordinary coincidence" only if there weren't hundreds of thousands of stars to look at. Did a child write that?!
 

1prophet

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
5,313
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I don't understand why people expect things from aliens. If they exist, they're aliens. 200 years ago, native populations that hadn't been visited by developed (modern sense, and only relatively) societies asked if their Earth bound visitors were from outer space. We have even less of a grasp of the capacities, limitations, beliefs, etc. that govern extra terrestrial aliens.


Because people haven't changed, years ago the unexplainable was attributed to magic, gods, demons, angels, etc.

Aliens is the latest in that progression, especially by the so called enlightened intellectuals who laugh at anything supernatural yet have no problem expecting the same miracles from aliens.
 

crashtech

Lifer
Jan 4, 2013
10,634
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May as well toss out the most wild hypotheses for review, sometimes it helps others think of something new.
 

Pipeline 1010

Golden Member
Dec 2, 2005
1,966
784
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Keep It Simple Stupid!
The light is blocked by an object between us and the star.

An alien superstructure is the least likely option.
A planetary sized asteroid belt is the most reasonable explanation.

Asteroid belts are not dense like in Star Wars; they are quite full of empty space. I'm not sure if that's the most reasonable explanation.

Although an alien superstructure is also unlikely, it would be really cool because we might perhaps be witnessing an alien culture transitioning from a Class 1 Kardashev Civilization to a Class 2 (think an early attempt at a Dyson Swarm or Dyson Sphere). Many scientists theorize that we may indeed be alone in the universe since no Dyson structures have ever been detected. Until now...?
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
34,521
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Asteroid belts are not dense like in Star Wars; they are quite full of empty space. I'm not sure if that's the most reasonable explanation.

Maybe a couple large planets collided. Also, it doesn't need to be dense per say... just enough to block the star's light 20% of the time. I know that'd require a lot... but there's no actual limit for how much could be collected out there.

Alternatives would be we're looking at it through the edge of a nebula or a blackhole where that star is only distorted 20% of the time.
 

nickqt

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2015
7,894
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We'll see.

The planet is like 1000+ light years away, so we should be able to answer a whole lot of questions by around 4200 ad. Should be a great year for cannabis users.
 

Pipeline 1010

Golden Member
Dec 2, 2005
1,966
784
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Maybe a couple large planets collided. Also, it doesn't need to be dense per say... just enough to block the star's light 20% of the time. I know that'd require a lot... but there's no actual limit for how much could be collected out there.

Alternatives would be we're looking at it through the edge of a nebula or a blackhole where that star is only distorted 20% of the time.

Our own "dense" asteroid belt has a separation on average of 2 MILLION miles between asteroids of a size of 1km or larger. An asteroid belt is NOT blocking the light 20% of the time, and is not doing so periodically.

Your alternatives could block out light, but would not periodically alternate between blocking out the light and letting it back in. Unless they are mobile nebulae and/or black holes that go back and forth across the star. I've never heard of those.

There are plenty of reasons why the star light is being periodically blocked. Can't I just hope it's aliens???
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
14,278
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Asteroid belts are unlikely near a star. Our solar system has an asteroid belt. Its way out past pluto.
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
34,521
8,590
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There are plenty of reasons why the star light is being periodically blocked. Can't I just hope it's aliens???

Do we have any reason for ruling out a binary system, with one star being dark or too dim to see? That might be large enough to do the task on a periodic basis.
 

Paratus

Lifer
Jun 4, 2004
17,306
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Do we have any reason for ruling out a binary system, with one star being dark or too dim to see? That might be large enough to do the task on a periodic basis.

Most of your questions are addressed in this article.

Slate: Phil Plait Bad Astronomy

Quick summary.
  • Large dips in light are erratic not periodic in the current data set
  • Lack of corresponding IR signature reduces likelihood of dust and gas
  • There is a nearby red dwarf, it's not the cause of the signature.
  • A possible alien megastructure is one hypothesis among many.
  • The natural hypotheses, (possibly large numbers of comets disturbed by red dwarf), are more likely than aliens.
  • Interesting star system needs more analysis.
 

WHAMPOM

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2006
7,628
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Maybe a couple large planets collided. Also, it doesn't need to be dense per say... just enough to block the star's light 20% of the time. I know that'd require a lot... but there's no actual limit for how much could be collected out there.

Alternatives would be we're looking at it through the edge of a nebula or a blackhole where that star is only distorted 20% of the time.

An asteroid belt massive enough to block 20% of a sun would out weight the sun and be forming planets due to mutual gravity attraction. At a thousand light years a nebula or black hole would be easily detected and effects accounted for. What I am thinking is that a natural massive feature in orbit would cause a wobble in the star while a manufactured one would be light and cause no such effect.
 

DucatiMonster696

Diamond Member
Aug 13, 2009
4,269
1
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Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish an alternative interpretation of the light pattern. SETI researchers have long suggested that we might be able to detect distant extraterrestrial civilizations, by looking for enormous technological artifacts orbiting other stars. Wright and his co-authors say the unusual star’s light pattern is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps stellar-light collectors, technology designed to catch energy from the star.

Wishful thinking used to keep one's donors donating to a program that will not produce any real or significant results because it relies on the singular idea that extraterrestrial beings are using radio waves to communicate. Never mind the vastness of space that makes pointing listening devices into the skies in hopes of catching ET broadcasting his tele-novellas into space about as likely as fishing out a specific and distinct grain of sand dropped somewhere in the middle of the vast oceans of the world by someone else. Or that we could somehow accurately spot, perceive and discriminate some mega structure apart from all other naturally occurring objects in the universe tens, hundreds, thousands of light years away using our current technology.
 
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