Tabby's star update

[Debi]

‘Alien megastructure’ star may be explained by interstellar junk

Step aside, alien megastructure. It seems that the behaviour of an oddity known as Tabby’s star – which some have speculated may be caused by a massive extraterrestrial construction project – might in reality be explained by interstellar junk.

KIC 8462852, as it is more officially called, was spotted by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which recently spent four years carefully watching the same patch of sky and looking for any stars that dipped in brightness at regular intervals. These dips, which can be as large as 1 per cent, happen when an exoplanet crosses in front of a star.

But Tabby’s star dimmed randomly, and by as much as 20 per cent, leaving astronomers dumbfounded – and leading to the speculation that an alien megastructure was responsible for the signal.

Now Valeri Makarov at the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC and Alexey Goldin at Teza Technologies in Chicago, Illinois, have taken a closer look at the smallest of the star’s dips in light – only to find that Tabby’s star isn’t responsible for them. Whenever the small dips occur, there is also a slight jump in the position of the light, leading them to conclude that it is actually a different star along the line of sight that is dimming.

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Tabby’s star is still responsible for the largest dips in light, however. If more than one star is dimming, say Makarov and Goldin, then the culprit for the erratic behaviour can’t be an asteroid belt, debris from a smash-up between two larger bodies, or an alien megastructure around Tabby’s star. In fact, it can’t be anything around Tabby’s star alone. Instead, it has to be something lying between us and them.

Full story at site
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Now I think we're just grasping at straws....a new explanation is popping up every month. And I thought this one was ruled out in the very beginning? Anyone else remember that?

 

[Lynne]

‘Alien megastructure’ star may be explained by interstellar junk

Step aside, alien megastructure. It seems that the behaviour of an oddity known as Tabby’s star – which some have speculated may be caused by a massive extraterrestrial construction project – might in reality be explained by interstellar junk.

KIC 8462852, as it is more officially called, was spotted by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which recently spent four years carefully watching the same patch of sky and looking for any stars that dipped in brightness at regular intervals. These dips, which can be as large as 1 per cent, happen when an exoplanet crosses in front of a star.

But Tabby’s star dimmed randomly, and by as much as 20 per cent, leaving astronomers dumbfounded – and leading to the speculation that an alien megastructure was responsible for the signal.

Now Valeri Makarov at the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC and Alexey Goldin at Teza Technologies in Chicago, Illinois, have taken a closer look at the smallest of the star’s dips in light – only to find that Tabby’s star isn’t responsible for them. Whenever the small dips occur, there is also a slight jump in the position of the light, leading them to conclude that it is actually a different star along the line of sight that is dimming.

.
Tabby’s star is still responsible for the largest dips in light, however. If more than one star is dimming, say Makarov and Goldin, then the culprit for the erratic behaviour can’t be an asteroid belt, debris from a smash-up between two larger bodies, or an alien megastructure around Tabby’s star. In fact, it can’t be anything around Tabby’s star alone. Instead, it has to be something lying between us and them.

Full story at site
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now I think we're just grasping at straws....a new explanation is popping up every month. And I thought this one was ruled out in the very beginning? Anyone else remember that?

Yes it's a cover up

 

[Debi]

Mystery Of The 'Megastructure Star' Deepens

Our galaxy’s weirdest star, KIC 8462852, is even weirder than previously thought, showing changes never observed before in a star like this.

To quickly recap, last year it was announced that the object experienced dramatic and rapid changes in brightness, which led to the wild speculation that the object was surrounded by an alien megastructure. New observations have shown that there are no aliens around it but the mystery has deepened further still, as historical data suggests that the star has inexplicably dimmed by 14 percent in just over a century.

Researchers Josh Simon and Ben Montet, using observations by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, discovered that KIC 8462852 faded slowly and then suddenly during the four years it was studied.

“Our highly accurate measurements over four years demonstrate that the star really is getting fainter with time,” said Montet, from Caltech, in a statement. "It is unprecedented for this type of star to slowly fade for years, and we don’t see anything else like it in the Kepler data.”

A pre-print of the research was released in August, and is now published in the Astrophysical Journal. In it, the scientists compared KIC 8462852 to 500 similar stars also observed by Kepler. Although they saw a small fraction getting fainter with time, none had dimming episodes as intense.

KIC 8462852, which is also known as Tabby’s star, faded about 1 percent in the first three years of the study, before suddenly dropping another 2 percent more. It then remained stable for the final six months.

“This star was already completely unique because of its sporadic dimming episodes. But now we see that it has other features that are just as strange, both slowly dimming for almost three years and then suddenly getting fainter much more rapidly,” Simon, from the Carnegie Institute of Science, continued.

The six months of dimming in 2012 could be explained by the breakup of a planet or comets, but the apparent long term fading must be something else. And we still don’t know what caused a dramatic change in brightness reported last year.

“It’s a big challenge to come up with a good explanation for a star doing three different things that have never been seen before,” Montet added. “But these observations will provide an important clue to solving the mystery of KIC 8462852.”

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Just keeps getting stranger with this thing. Thanks to Roswell Rayguns for bringing this update to my attention

 

[Debi]

New theory.....a star ate a planet...

‘Alien megastructure’ signal may be due to star eating a planet

 

[jadamz]

‘Alien megastructure’ star may be explained by interstellar junk

Step aside, alien megastructure. It seems that the behaviour of an oddity known as Tabby’s star – which some have speculated may be caused by a massive extraterrestrial construction project – might in reality be explained by interstellar junk.

KIC 8462852, as it is more officially called, was spotted by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which recently spent four years carefully watching the same patch of sky and looking for any stars that dipped in brightness at regular intervals. These dips, which can be as large as 1 per cent, happen when an exoplanet crosses in front of a star.

But Tabby’s star dimmed randomly, and by as much as 20 per cent, leaving astronomers dumbfounded – and leading to the speculation that an alien megastructure was responsible for the signal.

Now Valeri Makarov at the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC and Alexey Goldin at Teza Technologies in Chicago, Illinois, have taken a closer look at the smallest of the star’s dips in light – only to find that Tabby’s star isn’t responsible for them. Whenever the small dips occur, there is also a slight jump in the position of the light, leading them to conclude that it is actually a different star along the line of sight that is dimming.

.
Tabby’s star is still responsible for the largest dips in light, however. If more than one star is dimming, say Makarov and Goldin, then the culprit for the erratic behaviour can’t be an asteroid belt, debris from a smash-up between two larger bodies, or an alien megastructure around Tabby’s star. In fact, it can’t be anything around Tabby’s star alone. Instead, it has to be something lying between us and them.

Full story at site
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now I think we're just grasping at straws....a new explanation is popping up every month. And I thought this one was ruled out in the very beginning? Anyone else remember that?

weather balloon