Have astronomers detected an alien megastructure'?

[editor]

Mighty interesting stuff!

In a recent paper, researchers have ruled out the possibility of faulty data or telescope jostling. Something appears to be blocking out the light, but it's not a planet, and the star is too old to be surrounded by the rings of debris that tend to circle around younger stars. Neither do the scientists think it could be caused by a recent collision.

That leaves just a few hypotheses. One is a cloud of comets that got pulled into orbit by a migrating star--if the comets are breaking up as they revolve around the star, that could cause the irregular pattern of dimming. The paper notes that this is the most promising explanation.

There is one other hypothesis, however.

“Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider," Penn State astronomer Jason Wright told The Atlantic, "but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build.”

Wright, and many other astronomers, have postulated that we could detect advanced civilizations through their technology. The idea is that as alien civilizations become highly advanced, they'll need more and more energy to fuel their high-tech lifestyles. Perhaps the aliens would position solar collectors directly around a star, filling the star's orbit until some or all of its light is blocked. These hypothetical alien megastructures are called Dyson swarms or spheres.

Have We Detected Megastructures Built By Aliens Around A Distant Star?

 

[2hats]

It's the least likely explanation (there are at least six other hypotheses excluding little green men) but a couple of SETI groups are going to look for narrowband radio emission from the vicinity, just in case.

One or two astronomers have, tongue in cheek, labelled it WTF 001.

 

[Orang Utan]

this is a bit more circumspect but very interesting (and i HATE space!):
The Most Mysterious Star in Our Galaxy

 

[8ball]

Fuck's sake!

The answer to every headline even remotely like this is invariably 'no'.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

It'll turn out to be a bit of grit on the telescope lens

 

[existentialist]

It'll turn out to be a bit of grit on the telescope lens

There's something interesting there, but as 2hats says, there are plenty of other possible reasons for what they're seeing. And cosmic dust clouds are considerably more likely than Dyson spheres...

 

[laptop]

It'll turn out to be a bit of grit on the telescope lens

Or the staff-room microwave

 

[Mogden]

Does no one else consider it incredibly self absorbed to think we are the only "life" in this vast universe?

 

[8ball]

Does no one else consider it incredibly self absorbed to think we are the only "life" in this vast universe?

No, no one has ever thought of that. Ever.

 

[DotCommunist]

Its clearly a carnthii Dark Coral ship. Capital class, more floating warbase than ship. Bones of exotic dark matter coral they were famed for engineering from the basics of reality. Long gone now of course, sublimed a long long time ago. I say we mount a mission to see what trash and treasure they left behind. Chris Hadfield can do the soundtrack

 

[8ball]

Is it perhaps made of an incredibly light metal?

 

[HAL9000]

Past history, pulsars were labeled LGM, little green men. Turned out to be natural event.

Jocelyn Bell

In 1967 Bell, analyzing literally miles of print-outs from the telescope, noted a few "bits of scruff" that seemed to indicate radio signals too fast and regular to come from quasars. She and Hewish ruled out orbiting satellites, French television signals, radar, finally even "little green men." Looking back at some papers in theoretical physics, they determined that these signal must come from rapidly spinning, super-dense, collapsed stars. The media called these collapsed stars pulsars and jumped on the story

(Bell didn't get a nobel prize for this discovery despite being person who spotted the signal)

 

[existentialist]

Does no one else consider it incredibly self absorbed to think we are the only "life" in this vast universe?

I don't think that. But there's a big step between "life", to "intelligent life", and then onto "life that can build megastructures".

I'm absolutely sure life is out there - with the knowledge of even just the last 30 years, we have identified all kinds of situations with conditions that are propitious for life, at the same time as we're now understanding more about the possibility of life itself crossing from one place to another in space. It'd be astonishing if there wasn't anything. But if we're going to start filling in some of the terms of the Drake equation , we need to be finding radio-transmitting life somewhere within a relatively (har) small radius of us in space. That's going to be a lot rarer. How rare, we don't know - even if we find one other, it won't really tell us much, so we'd have to find quite a few to be able to start guessing about prevalence.

But it's intriguing to think there could be a bunch out there who can do this sort of stuff...

 

[Mogden]

We can't be the smartest arses out there. That's why I put life in inverted commas as there are varying degrees of life. I just can't fathom how people put faith in a or several Gods but think you've hit the loopy juice if you suggest that in all probability we are not the only ones here.

 

[existentialist]

We can't be the smartest arses out there. That's why I put life in inverted commas as there are varying degrees of life. I just can't fathom how people put faith in a or several Gods but think you've hit the loopy juice if you suggest that in all probability we are not the only ones here.

There's definitely no reason for thinking we should be the smartest arses out there. Unless there's some kind of self-limiting emergent property that comes from endless evolution towards higher intelligence, why should it stop at us?

 

[teqniq]

There's definitely no reason for thinking we should be the smartest arses out there. Unless there's some kind of self-limiting emergent property that comes from endless evolution towards higher intelligence, why should it stop at us?

The smartest arses? I would put us at 'suicidally stupid' on any scale of intelligence and that's being generous.

 

[friedaweed]

When I saw the title I thought Jazzz was back.

 

[Orang Utan]

We can't be the smartest arses out there. That's why I put life in inverted commas as there are varying degrees of life. I just can't fathom how people put faith in a or several Gods but think you've hit the loopy juice if you suggest that in all probability we are not the only ones here.

for sure, i just hope they never get advanced enough to invent faster than light travel and come pay a visit.

 

[existentialist]

The smartest arses? I would put us at 'suicidally stupid' on any scale of intelligence and that's being generous.

You may be being unduly harsh, but until we find another one to compare ourselves will, we'll never know. They might be worse...

 

[2hats]

The Wow signal...

 

[StoneRoad]

If there are space travellers out there - then our heliopause probably has warning buoys telling everyone else to steer well clear of this system.

 

[fishfinger]

If there are space travellers out there - then our heliopause probably has warning buoys telling everyone else to steer well clear of this system.

 

[editor]

When I saw the title I thought Jazzz was back.

Except the link didn't lead you to prisonplanet or loons'r'us.com

 

[mack]

I hope there's a signal.

 

[2hats]

Or the staff-room microwave

You jest, but in a previous life I was working on a radio telescope and we used to be able to 'hear 'the electrics of the Lada belonging to one of the postgrad students when they were still some distance from the observatory.

 

[laptop]

You jest, but in a previous life I was working on a radio telescope and we used to be able to 'hear 'the electrics of the Lada belonging to one of the postgrad students when they were still some distance from the observatory.

The microwave thing happened: links tomorrow.

 

[2hats]

The microwave thing happened: links tomorrow.

It's happened several times before. I recall at Parkes the microwave was wrapped in an extra large, purpose built Faraday cage.

 

[Mumbles274]

That's no moon

 

[Supine]

Its bound to be a Death Star under construction

 

[Mumbles274]

Its bound to be a Death Star under construction

It is a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.. Probably finished by now