{"id":18952,"date":"2017-05-19T21:02:11","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T13:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/astronomers-catch-mysteriously-dimming-alien-megastructure-star-in-the-act\/"},"modified":"2017-05-19T21:02:11","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T13:02:11","slug":"astronomers-catch-mysteriously-dimming-alien-megastructure-star-in-the-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/astronomers-catch-mysteriously-dimming-alien-megastructure-star-in-the-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers catch mysteriously dimming \u2018alien megastructure\u2019 star in the act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tabby\u2019s Star&nbsp;\u2013 also known as KIC 8462852 or the \u201calien megastructure\u201d star&nbsp;\u2013 is at it again. And this time the world is watching. The star in the constellation Cygnus has intrigued astronomers for a year and a half because they can\u2019t quite explain why it periodically dims. One hypothesis is that aliens are building an energy-generating Dyson sphere around the star, but less way-out possibilities include cometary storms or blobs of circumstellar material. This week, a team on the Canary Islands&nbsp;detected unusual readings from Tabby\u2019s Star, just in time to alert fellow astronomers&nbsp;around the world to turn their telescopes toward it. At last report, the star was registering a sharp&nbsp;2 to 3 percent dip in brightness \u2013 and astronomers are hopeful that a wealth of spectral readings will help them solve the mystery.<\/p>\n<p><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" class=\"\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden; width: 0px; height: 0px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;\" title=\"X Post\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=b0yle&amp;dnt=true&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;features=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%3D%3D&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=865542587087601665&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geekwire.com%2F2017%2Fastronomers-alien-megastructure-star%2F&amp;sessionId=14d0a85c1cc4a8a12c709cde5f6c69e20c29c2c6&amp;siteScreenName=geekwire&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=6a3ad42b224df%3A1778106238597&amp;width=550px\" data-tweet-id=\"865542587087601665\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\" data-twitter-extracted-i1782802693642612017=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">its 2% in r&#8217; band and looks like its the start pic.twitter.com\/TjJdSY2ar9<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dr Tabetha Boyajian (@tsboyajian) May 19, 2017<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tabby\u2019s Star&nbsp;\u2013 also known as KIC 8462852 or the \u201calien megastructure\u201d star&nbsp;\u2013 is at it again. And this time the world is watching. The star in the constellation Cygnus has intrigued astronomers for a year and a half because they can\u2019t quite explain why it periodically dims. One hypothesis is that aliens are building an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4666,5286],"class_list":["post-18952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-alien-megastructure","tag-kic-8462852"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}