{"id":18677,"date":"2018-01-03T23:41:50","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T15:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/alien-megastructure-forget-about-it-weird-stars-discoverers-say-after-further-study\/"},"modified":"2018-01-03T23:41:50","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T15:41:50","slug":"alien-megastructure-forget-about-it-weird-stars-discoverers-say-after-further-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/alien-megastructure-forget-about-it-weird-stars-discoverers-say-after-further-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Alien megastructure? Forget about it, weird star\u2019s discoverers say after further study"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tabetha
Astronomer Tabetha Boyajian discusses Tabby\u2019s Star, \u201cthe most mysterious star in the universe,\u201d during a TED talk in February 2016 in Vancouver, B.C. (TED via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The astronomers who once speculated that an alien megastructure might be responsible for the weirdly fluctuating light from a distant star have now fully ruled out that way-out explanation.<\/p>\n

Their conclusion, reported in a paper published today by Astrophysical Journal Letters, is based on a crowdfunded analysis of the light patterns in a wide range of wavelengths.<\/p>\n

The authors of the paper include Louisiana State University\u2019s Tabetha Boyajian, who led the discovery team for the star known as KIC 8462852 or \u201cTabby\u2019s Star\u201d; and Penn State\u2019s Jason Wright, who first proposed the alien-megastructure hypothesis.<\/p>\n

Tabby\u2019s Star was discovered about 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, thanks to an analysis of data from NASA\u2019s Kepler space telescope. Soon after the discovery was announced in 2015, it was dubbed the \u201cmost mysterious star in the universe,\u201d because its brightness underwent dramatic dips over intervals ranging from five to 80 days.<\/p>\n

Wright suggested that the variations in brightness might be due to the blocking effect of a huge structure that was built around the star. He acknowledged that the presence of an alien megastructure, such as a Dyson sphere, was highly unlikely. Nevertheless, he and his colleagues thought the hypothesis was worth checking out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were hoping that once we finally caught a dip happening in real time, we could see if the dips were the same depth at all wavelengths,\u201d he explained today in a news release. \u201cIf they were nearly the same, this would suggest that the cause was something opaque, like an orbiting disk, planet, or star, or even large structures in space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dips
This chart shows variations in the brightness of the star KIC 8462852 between May 2017 and December 2017, as recorded by telescopes in Texas (ELP), Hawaii (OGG) and the Canary Islands (TFN). Significant dips have been nicknamed Elsie, Celeste, Skara Brae and Angkor. (Boyajian et al.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To help pay for the observations and analysis, Wright and his colleagues raised more than $100,000 in a Kickstarter campaign.<\/p>\n

A network of telescopes around the world, coordinated through the Las Cumbres Observatory in California, detected four sustained dips in the starlight between March 2016 and December 2017. The team went so far as to name each of the dips. The first two were called Elsie and Celeste, while the latter two were named after lost cities (Skara Brae in Scotland and Angkor in Cambodia).<\/p>\n

The authors wrote that as far as they were concerned, the dips in brightness had some things in common with those lost cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re ancient; we are watching things that happened more than 1,000 years ago,\u201d they said. \u201cThey\u2019re almost certainly caused by something ordinary, at least on a cosmic scale. And yet that makes them more interesting, not less. But most of all, they\u2019re mysterious. What the heck was going on there, all those centuries ago?\u201d<\/p>\n

When the light levels in various wavelengths were measured, Tabby\u2019s Star became a little less mysterious. The team found that the dimming was much less pronounced in some wavelengths than in others.<\/p>\n

\u201cDust is most likely the reason why the star\u2019s light appears to dim and brighten,\u201d Boyajian said. \u201cThe new data shows that different colors of light are being blocked at different intensities. Therefore, whatever is passing between us and the star is not opaque, as would be expected from a planet or alien megastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n