Update on Alien Megastructure

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Alien Megastructure Update: What We Know



Home » Featured » Alien Megastructure Update: What We Know
Alien Megastructure Update: What We Know

AgentZero | February, 2016 | Featured, Mysteries
Impossible Data—the Mystery Begins

Tabetha Boyajian knew something wasn’t right. The data she was looking at wasn’t just strange—it was impossible.
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Dr. Tabby Boyajian Noticed the Bizarre
Dimming of Star KIC 8462852, Which May
Be Surrounded by an Alien Megastructure

She was looking at a star whose official scientific name is KIC 8462852. Actually, she wasn’t looking at the star itself. Dr. Boyajian, an astronomer at Yale University, was looking at the data about the star. The data said that the star was dimming, and not just a little. It was dimming by over 20%, and then returning to normal brightness. Stars don’t do that.

Sure, a type F star like KIC 8462852 might dim for a while, by maybe a percent or two.
Tabby rechecked the data, had others look. It was a colleague, Jason Wright, who came up with a mind-blowing explanation.
Tale of the Two Theories

When Tabby’s Star hit the mainstream, there were two competing ideas about what could be causing such bizarre dimming behavior.

Theory One: alien megastructures. This is what Jason Wright from Pennsylvania State University had suggested to Tabby—some kind of structure might exist around that star that causes it to dim for periods of time. Obviously an idea like that is going to get attention; pseudo-skeptics around the world couldn’t stop themselves from attacking Dr. Wright. Aliens!? They can’t exist! You cannot have found them! It’s impossible because it’s impossible!
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Dr. Jason Wright First Suggested
the Alien Megastructure Idea

Reality check: no one, not Jason, not Tabetha, has suggested that there is any kind of proof of an alien megastructure. But it’s a reasonable explanation for the 20% reduction in light coming from an enormous thermonuclear fusion engine.

Theory Two: comet swarm. For a brief period of time, media pundits were reporting that the mystery was over; it was just some swarming comets in front of the star, dude, so chill out. It’s not aliens.
Dr. Tabby herself was not particularly sold on the idea. “It’s a bit of a stretch to have comets that are large enough to block that much of the light from the star,” she said.

Still, other than these two theories, there have been no reasonable explanations for what is causing Tabby’s Star to dim so radically.

Where we stand now:

There is only one viable explanation currently available for the radical dimming of Tabby’s Star: a giant structure enveloping it, causing it to fade periodically. Ever single other idea has been dismissed—debunked, you might say—as an unsatisfactory explanation. It’s not comets, unless (as Dr. Schaefer says) someone orchestrated more than half a million comets to pass in front of the star for over a century.
And just because you don’t want to believe that it’s aliens doesn’t mean that it’s not aliens. Because it’s probably aliens. Sorry if that disappoints your addiction to a mundane and lifeless universe.

Full Story at site...well worth the read