1. Kingtype

    Kingtype Banned Contributor

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    Has anyone else heard about this 'Alien' megastructure?

    Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Kingtype, Oct 16, 2015.

    So I don't think anyone made a thread of this yet but I thought it was interesting, and I do know a lot of us on here have a love for science.

    They found something rather interesting out in space apparently.

    Figured it could make a fun discussion :)

    Here are some random links about it (there are lots if you want to look it up though yourself)

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-most-mysterious-star-in-our-galaxy/ar-AAfpfh1?ocid=ansmsnnews11

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-astronomers-saying-alien-space-180209741.html

    http://www.universetoday.com/122865/whats-orbiting-kic-8462852-shattered-comet-or-alien-megastructure/

    Course I don't think its an alien ship harvesting sun energy (in fact as they say it isn't or well very little chance it is) BUT you never know! So what do you all think it is or think about this in general? :D

    Pretty cool!
     
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  2. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Fun to think about, and maybe a cool SF story. Suspect it's a natural phenomenon of some kind :)
     
  3. aguywhotypes

    aguywhotypes Active Member

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    It wasn't a dream! I knew they would come for me.
     
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  4. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Cool indeed.

    I'd hazard a guess that the chance of aliens, suggested evidence of same, or any anomaly that can capture the imagination of the general population -- especially if you could give them preemptive part-ownership of it via citizen scientists being involved in the discovery, would be great for funding endeavours. It's certainly what I would prefer $$ were spent on vs wars.
     
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  5. Viridian

    Viridian Member Supporter

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    Yeah, I was reading about this the other day. Very interesting stuff.
     
  6. ADreamer

    ADreamer Banned Sock-Puppet

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    Doubtful it is aliens - as an alien spaceship or megaship would follow the same laws as planets - gravitational pull & an established orbit. So that wouldn't be responsible for the sunlight from this star fading at odd intervals. Even if you were to claim aliens who are moving outside of the pull - it'd have to be a spaceship in comparable size to a planet so like Star Wars' deathstars.

    Someone mentioned a rough black hole on one site - possible. Or the comet idea.

    Personally I think it's getting far too much "alien" hype. There's more believable alien possibilities out there than what is probably nothing more than a variable star [a pulsar star for example; though variables take in more than that].
     
  7. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    I don't get it how there would be any 'alien structure' hypothesis out of the phenomena. Maybe if we have any cosmologists in the house they could explain why this isn't just thought to be yet another interesting find the better our viewing instruments get. Didn't we just find out Pluto was nothing like anyone had thought it would be?

    However, I'm all for pointing those radio telescopes in any direction that looks unusual.

    I think someone's seen the Death Star on too many times. :p
     
  8. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    They can predict Halley's comet because it's a regular occurrence, despite the length of its reappearance cycle.

    What they are observing around this star is random light dips, not regular light dips. That is unnatural.

    I am no cosmologist, but from an intuitive POV, this is what would make me think it was alien in origin.
     
  9. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    If you have some kind of large debris field would you get irregular dips in light?
     
  10. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    I get that part about the 'doesn't fit with anything we know or can imagine'. But the Universe is full of stuff that we never saw before the first time we saw it. An alien structure so large it is affecting the light that reaches our telescopes? It would have to be huge. It just seems to me that 'of alien construction' is waaaaay down on the bottom of the list of hypothetical explanations.
     
  11. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    *explains how*

    :wtf:
     
  12. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    :)

    Perhaps I'm not communicating my question. I do understand a fair amount of cosmology, it's a hobby of mine. I understand how the search for planets is being conducted from the first discoveries of 'wobble' to the current method of measuring planet transits by the dimming or their stars. I understand an unusual phenomena was discovered and that said pattern of irregular dimming didn't fit with current models of what a solar system of that age was expected to contain.

    What I don't understand is why with said new discovery that alien construction would be very high on the differential. Surely a non-alien-construction hypothesis is thousands of times more likely than ET might have built things orbiting this star.

    But I found this on Space . com:
    Which leads me to believe the scientists are being realistic, the news media is not. My faith in the astronomy community is restored. ;)
     
  13. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Yeah you could say that. It's almost as if you've completely changed it.
     
  14. Aire

    Aire Banned Sock-Puppet

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    Unless I read the wrong articles neither of the people whom made the statements of "bizarreness" are experts in their field. One oversees volunteers and the other is just an associate professor.

    Dwarf stars for example are typically dying stars. So think of the light radiating from a sun as something like a heartbeat. As a person is dying, their heartbeat is oftentimes irregular. So by association - dying star - dying "heartbeat" = irregular light signals. Star PG1149+057 is a dying white dwarf with... my goodness... irregular light signals.
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2015
  15. Aire

    Aire Banned Sock-Puppet

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    I had to do some double checking.

    So KIC 8462852 is not "unnatural" because it is a type of dwarf. It is a yellow-white dwarf. It's on the verge of becoming a white or a "degenerating" star. It's changing light pattern could be due to this transformation or it might even be dying earlier than typical.
     
  16. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    That's a rounding error. The odds are close enough to zero that 'any' in a casual statement isn't that far off. :p
     
  17. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    I have no idea what you're saying here, but your original confusion and subsequent qualification are not similar at all.
     
  18. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Sometimes in casual conversation a person uses absolutes more casually than one means literally.

    Look, I get it my sentence was misleading. All I'm saying is I didn't change my position.

    Beyond that, is there anything of substance here?
     
  19. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Understood... reminds me of this:

     

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