Have astronomers detected an alien megastructure'?

[xes]

An alien structure explanation was only a throw away comment for the formation, why are people so focussed on it? It's far more likely to be debris of some kind. An accretion disc from the formation of that planet or a collision from a comet or some other space bangy thing.

 

[laptop]

An alien structure explanation was only a throw away comment for the formation, why are people so focussed on it?

Because headline material.

 

[laptop]

Because headline material.

And very, very happy university press office (and grant panel?)

 

[xes]

fair enough.

 

[xes]

ALIENZ are back on the table

That bizarre-looking star just got a lot weirder, and yes — it could be aliens

What makes this star, called KIC8462852, so bizarre is the drastic changes in light we see from it over time. Many stars experience temporary fluctuations in brightness, increasing and decreasing in luminosity over time, but KIC8462852's changes are severe by comparison.

Between 2009 and 2013, astronomers using the Kepler space telescope discovered that it would sometimes lose up to 20% of its brightness. What's more, the changes didn't follow any obvious pattern.

That would suggest something gigantic must be blocking the light at random times, meaning it couldn't be a planet or other regular orbiting object because that would generate a distinct pattern of dimming light. It must be something that changes shape over time, thereby blocking different levels of light at random intervals.

(because a massive cloud of debris coun't cause this effect )

 

[emanymton]

You know, if I was cynical. Which of course I'm not. I could almost suspect they mention aliens just to get journalists interested enough to run with the story.

 

[twentythreedom]

Star killer death planet under construction

 

[2hats]

ALIENZ are back on the table

The Yahoo article conveniently ignores the fact that Schafer, the author of the new analysis, states:

"The alien megastructure idea runs wrong with my new observations". He thinks even advanced aliens wouldn’t be able to build something capable of covering a fifth of a star in just a century. "What’s more, such an object should radiate light absorbed from the star as heat, but the infrared signal from the star appears normal".

 

[xes]

**GASP**

Surely not!!

 

[bi0boy]

The Yahoo article conveniently ignores the fact that Schafer, the author of the new analysis, states:

"The alien megastructure idea runs wrong with my new observations". He thinks even advanced aliens wouldn’t be able to build something capable of covering a fifth of a star in just a century. "What’s more, such an object should radiate light absorbed from the star as heat, but the infrared signal from the star appears normal".

He doesn't have a very good imagination when it comes to aliens. Obviously it would be easy to build such a structure quickly using self-replicating machines, and having built such a structure to absorb light energy why would they have it radiate heat energy instead of using it for their inscrutable purposes.

 

[laptop]

having built such a structure to absorb light energy why would they have it radiate heat energy instead of using it for their inscrutable purposes.

Thermodynamics.

To generate you have to radiate

 

[bi0boy]

Thermodynamics.

To generate you have to radiate

Maybe they're directing all the heat and light into a black box.

 

[DotCommunist]

I recon whats happenedis a group of stellar engineers have tapped into it to power their time and space ships. Rassilon lives!

 

[existentialist]

He doesn't have a very good imagination when it comes to aliens. Obviously it would be easy to build such a structure quickly using self-replicating machines, and having built such a structure to absorb light energy why would they have it radiate heat energy instead of using it for their inscrutable purposes.

One might have thought that a civilisation capable of building such machines might also have mastered a technology for capturing the energy they are blocking.

I still think this is probably rather enjoyable speculation, and that the explanation will turn out to be somewhat more conventional, though possibly still quite exciting.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

One might have thought that a civilisation capable of building such machines might also have mastered a technology for capturing the energy they are blocking.

I still think this is probably rather enjoyable speculation, and that the explanation will turn out to be somewhat more conventional, though possibly still quite exciting.

This. Also, is an advanced civilization can build anything at scale in space it's not unreasonable to expect they could do it in less than a century...

 

[Pingu]

This. Also, is an advanced civilization can build anything at scale in space it's not unreasonable to expect they could do it in less than a century...

as long as they dont outsource key elements of the project to the flublibulan subsystem.

 

[laptop]

One might have thought that a civilisation capable of building such machines might also have mastered a technology for capturing the energy they are blocking.

Well, if we're speculating about a civilisation that's found a way around the laws of thermodynamics...

 

[Bernie Gunther]

as long as they dont outsource key elements of the project to the flublibulan subsystem.

Particularly to Serco or Crapita.

 

[existentialist]

Well, if we're speculating about a civilisation that's found a way around the laws of thermodynamics...

Oh, I wasn't going that far. But they could all have little wormholes embedded in them, down which the energy is directed, to emerge at some convenient place...

 

[NoXion]

Stable, traversable wormholes require exotic matter/energy in their construction. While physicists have constructed plausible models, that plausibility is contingent on negative matter/energy turning out not to be unphysical.

How we would establish that I have no idea. We haven't even managed to get reconcile quantum mechanics and relativity yet.

 

[hot air baboon]

He doesn't have a very good imagination when it comes to aliens. Obviously it would be easy to build such a structure quickly using self-replicating machines...

...lacking imagination and he's clearly never seen 2010 Odyssey Two...

 

[existentialist]

Stable, traversable wormholes require exotic matter/energy in their construction. While physicists have constructed plausible models, that plausibility is contingent on negative matter/energy turning out not to be unphysical.

How we would establish that I have no idea. We haven't even managed to get reconcile quantum mechanics and relativity yet.

But perhaps they have

I appreciate that there's a long road between figuring something out theoretically and producing some kind of workable implementation, but we have to be careful not to embed too many of our assumptions about the difficulty of such a task into our assessment of whether it is hypothetically feasible to a more technologically advanced civilisation.

I still suspect that the answer will turn out to be much more prosaic, but it doesn't hurt to speculate a little...

 

[NoXion]

But perhaps they have

I appreciate that there's a long road between figuring something out theoretically and producing some kind of workable implementation, but we have to be careful not to embed too many of our assumptions about the difficulty of such a task into our assessment of whether it is hypothetically feasible to a more technologically advanced civilisation.

I still suspect that the answer will turn out to be much more prosaic, but it doesn't hurt to speculate a little...

I share your suspicions. Of course, speculation is enormous fun. Or at least I'm one of those who enjoy it; it's one of the reasons that science fiction is my number one favourite genre.

The thing with negative mass is that it opens up the possibility for "runaway motion". Positive mass attracts both itself and negative mass, while negative mass would repel both itself and positive mass. Now imagine two spheres of iron next to each other in space, one positive and the other negative. The negative iron sphere would push away its partner, while the positive iron sphere would pull the other towards itself. The net effect of this would be a constant acceleration of the two spheres, with the positive iron sphere leading the way. Wikipedia tells me that this wouldn't violate conservation of energy or momentum.

However, one could use this phenomenon as the basis for a "Diametric Drive", as proposed in NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program. This would be a type of reactionless drive, and most sources I've seen say that such devices would violate conservation of momentum, which makes sense - you're basically getting infinite acceleration for the low, low price of moving two masses close to each other. It would be the number one propulsion system for travelling interstellar, making the hot, bright, radiation-spewing, propellant-guzzling torchship look like a bad joke.

So yeah, if it does turn out be some kind of alien civilisation, right there is a handy potential explanation for why we haven't spotted the emissions of their starships' engines; they don't have any emissions.

 

[2hats]

The Wow signal...

Now suspected to be two previously unidentified comets (signal due to hydrogen in cometary comas).

 

[teqniq]

Scientists are trying to come up with other theories for that 'huge alien megastructure.' They can't

new bit of research:

...a new paper looks at those explanations, and concludes that all previous models can’t account for the way that the light coming from the star is behaving. “No known or proposed stellar phenomena can fully explain all aspects of the observed light curve,” the authors, Caltech’s Ben Montet and the Carnegie Institute’s Joshua Simon, write....

 

[purves grundy]

Maybe some more on here

Scientists just found the closest ever ‘second Earth'

Let's smash it up!!! (say humans, deep down)

 

[2hats]

Sorry, no ETs - astronomers at UIUC now think they understand the process behind the light curve of KIC 8462852/Tabby’s star. A statistical analysis points to an avalanche model where the luminosity changes being down to the structure of the star itself and due to it being near a critical point of a continuous phase transition(*) where small variations (events) are undergoing power law scaling in between larger events (similar phase transitions are seen in other physical systems such as magnetic fields, deformation of brittle materials). Insight into the nature of the phase transition (ie what it is from and heading towards) will require more observations and analysis of such.
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.261101

* (e2a) to perhaps help - imagine heating water from ice to liquid water to water vapour. This is an example of continuous phase transition. There are obvious stages during this at which dramatic changes occur (first order phase transitions). One such stage being liquid water boiling, where bubbles of steam (water gas) build, collide, nucleating into larger more buoyant bubbles, rising to the surface of the liquid water from where they evaporate away; the liquid water has become gaseous steam water.

 

[scooter]

It's dimming again, right now.

The ‘Alien Megastructure’ Star Is Dimming Again

'Tabby's Star' intrigues astro-boffins with brief 'dimming event'

 

[Idris2002]

It's dimming again, right now.

The ‘Alien Megastructure’ Star Is Dimming Again

'Tabby's Star' intrigues astro-boffins with brief 'dimming event'

They're trying to warn us of something.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

They're trying to warn us of something.

They've come back from holiday and switched the space kettle on, hence the power drain.