Post by Logan on Jan 16, 2016 21:48:32 GMT -6
Astrophysicist: Alien megastructure could still be answer for what's dimming star KIC 8462852
t's almost certainly not an alien megastructure dimming the light of the distant star KIC8462852, known also as Tabby's Star and the Megastructure Sun, but the top natural-cause theory for the dimming isn't adding up.
And new data suggest the question is still an open one and that means the very distant (ahem!) possibility that an alien-built, sun-energy-sucking megastructure circling the star is still in the running.
Rewind ...
Basically a group of citizen astronomers was combing through starlight data gathered by the Kepler Space Telescope on the Planet Hunters site in 2011. Kepler stared at a point in space for four years, gathering data on dips in star brightness. When the light strength falls off, it's possible a planet has passed in front of the star.
These volunteer planet hunters noticed a strange double dip in the light intensity from a star named KIC 8462852. They got professionals interested in this dip. The best-guess scenario was that a swarm of comets had passed in front of the star just as Kepler was looking ...
Continue reading at www.sfgate.com/local/science/article/Astrophysicist-Alien-megastructure-could-still-6763319.php .
t's almost certainly not an alien megastructure dimming the light of the distant star KIC8462852, known also as Tabby's Star and the Megastructure Sun, but the top natural-cause theory for the dimming isn't adding up.
And new data suggest the question is still an open one and that means the very distant (ahem!) possibility that an alien-built, sun-energy-sucking megastructure circling the star is still in the running.
Rewind ...
Basically a group of citizen astronomers was combing through starlight data gathered by the Kepler Space Telescope on the Planet Hunters site in 2011. Kepler stared at a point in space for four years, gathering data on dips in star brightness. When the light strength falls off, it's possible a planet has passed in front of the star.
These volunteer planet hunters noticed a strange double dip in the light intensity from a star named KIC 8462852. They got professionals interested in this dip. The best-guess scenario was that a swarm of comets had passed in front of the star just as Kepler was looking ...
By considering the observational constraints on dust clumps orbiting a normal main-sequence star, we conclude that the scenario most consistent with the data in hand is the passage of a family of exocomet fragments, all of which are associated with a single previous breakup event.
Continue reading at www.sfgate.com/local/science/article/Astrophysicist-Alien-megastructure-could-still-6763319.php .