Dust cloud, or alien construction?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

But, I believe, more precisely defined.

Me no math, so it wouldn't matter anyway.

 

[Mark6]

This star just got even weirder:

http://gizmodo.com/the-case-of-the-so-called-alien-megastructure-just-got-1753269810

While Kepler only has a few years of data on the star, astronomer Bradley Schaefer of Louisiana State University decided to look at photographic plates of the sky dating back to the late 19th century. To his amazement, he learned that over the last hundred years, KIC 8462852's light output has steadily faded by about 19%, something that’s “completely unprecedented for any F-type main sequence star.”

“This presents some trouble for the comet hypothesis,” Tabetha Boyajian, a lead researcher on the team that originally discovered the star, told New Scientist. “We need more data through continuous monitoring to figure out what is going on.”

 

[alexi_drago]

Building structures to block out 19% of the starlight over a 100-200 year period, would that not present a problem too?

 

[Fudbucker]

Building structures to block out 19% of the starlight over a 100-200 year period, would that not present a problem too?

It does seem a short time period for an engineering project of that size.

Suppose though, that they're building huge solar panels. The first panel only blocks a hundredth of a percent of the star's output and takes 20 years to build. But when it comes online, it provides enough energy for self-replicating nanomachines to build two panels in 20 years. Those two can then power enough machines to build 4 panels, then 8 panels, then 16...

So in 200 years, 2 to the 9th power of panels have been built: 512 panels. That would dim the star about 5%. If you fudge the numbers a little, you could get to 19% in 200 years without too much trouble.

 

[Mike!]

Bet the octopi are behind it.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Bet the octopi are behind it.

The ones with five tentacles?

 

[Mike!]

The ones with five tentacles?

Yeah, those guys.

 

[Davidm]

The ones with five tentacles?

That would be "pentapi" (or maybe "quintopi"?) rather than "octopi".

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That would be "pentapi" (or maybe "quintopi"?) rather than "octopi".

Octopus harryhauseni

 

[Cainkane1]

This is probably a natural phenomena. Like the op I dearly wish we could find evidence of an alien civilization but try as they might astronomers can't find the evidence.

It saddens me that our own solar system only hosts one species with civilization. We may find microbes on Mars or Jupiters and Saturns moons or ever ceres or another asteroid but those life forms don't build buildings, have philosophy and science.

Are humans truly alone in the universe?

 

[Rincewind]

This is probably a natural phenomena. Like the op I dearly wish we could find evidence of an alien civilization but try as they might astronomers can't find the evidence.

It saddens me that our own solar system only hosts one species with civilization. We may find microbes on Mars or Jupiters and Saturns moons or ever ceres or another asteroid but those life forms don't build buildings, have philosophy and science.

Are humans truly alone in the universe?

You forgetting us Diskworldians?

Shame on you!

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Are humans truly alone in the universe?

Effectively, yes, I believe. Actually, who knows. We can't scan the entire universe and intelligent life may be rare enough that only one such species exists at any given time.

 

[Travis]

Since everyone likes to snicker and post Ancient Aliens memes when artificial construction is brought up what are the alternatives now that this new evidence has been brought to light?

And, alternatively, what amount of more evidence would be needed to convince us it is an artificial construction project?

 

[Wolrab]

Since everyone likes to snicker and post Ancient Aliens memes when artificial construction is brought up what are the alternatives now that this new evidence has been brought to light?

And, alternatively, what amount of more evidence would be needed to convince us it is an artificial construction project?

The union contract.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Since everyone likes to snicker and post Ancient Aliens memes when artificial construction is brought up what are the alternatives now that this new evidence has been brought to light?

Someone on Slashdot posted the following:

My suspicion is that what we may be watching is a relatively short-lived (meaning less than tens of thousands of years) phase of Tabby's Star evolving from a main sequence star at the very earliest stage of becoming a (super-)giant. There is just barely enough helium accumulated at its core that its fusion only fitfully begins only to sputter out when the additional heat generated by that hotter fusion diffuses that core to below helium-fusion levels. Of course this "current" sputtering was generated tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago at the core (taking that long for the scattered light to reach the star's photosphere and thus become visible to us), but when helium fusion actually takes hold then the star ballooning out to become a (super-)giant will overtake that sputtering.

I don't know what their background or level of knowledge is, and I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The latest imaging shows clouds of large black obelisks moving in orbit around that sun.


Or maybe not.

 

[Mike!]

The union contract.

What if it's a 'Right-to-Work' star?

 

[BenBurch]

What if it is a natural phenomenon but not one we expect?

Like if there is some sort of spaceborne life form that either evolved there or has colonized that star? That could explain the dimming and the light curve. Think of the "Star Seeds" from the Known Space universe. And there is no reason they would show up in a SETI search because they either don't use RF or they use it at very small amplitudes.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What if it is a natural phenomenon but not one we expect?

Like if there is some sort of spaceborne life form that either evolved there or has colonized that star? That could explain the dimming and the light curve. Think of the "Star Seeds" from the Known Space universe. And there is no reason they would show up in a SETI search because they either don't use RF or they use it at very small amplitudes.

I'll take "Unexplained Phenomena" for $500.

 

[CynicalSkeptic]

http://gizmodo.com/flawed-data-just-made-that-alien-megastructure-even-mor-1775609592

“In this case, we looked at variations in the brightness of a number of comparable stars in the DASCH database and found that many of them experienced a similar drop in intensity in the 1960’s. That indicates the drops were caused by changes in the instrumentation not by changes in the stars’ brightness.”