{"id":19556,"date":"2015-11-26T00:20:26","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T16:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/alien-megastructure-nothing-to-see-around-formerly-weird-star-scientists-say\/"},"modified":"2015-11-26T00:20:26","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T16:20:26","slug":"alien-megastructure-nothing-to-see-around-formerly-weird-star-scientists-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/alien-megastructure-nothing-to-see-around-formerly-weird-star-scientists-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Alien megastructure? Nothing to see around formerly weird star, scientists say"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_214149\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-214149\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-214149 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/151125-comet-620x349.jpg\" alt=\"Comet storm, not alien megastructures\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/151125-comet-620x349.jpg 620w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/151125-comet.jpg 1133w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-214149\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This illustration shows a star behind a shattered comet. Observations of the star KIC 8462852 by NASA\u2019s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes suggest that its unusual light signals are probably due to dusty comet fragments that blocked the light of the star. (Credit: NASA \/ JPL-Caltech)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Recent infrared observations of a star that once showed a pattern of weird dimming have turned up no anomalous readings, astronomers say&nbsp;\u2013 and that supports&nbsp;the view that a comet blitz rather than the construction of an alien megastructure was behind the earlier observations.<\/p>\n<p>The latest evidence, laid out in a paper published&nbsp;in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, isn\u2019t exactly surprising. The&nbsp;passing of a shattered comet was seen&nbsp;as the leading orthodox explanation for the&nbsp;star KIC&nbsp;8462852\u2019s strange behavior.<\/p>\n<p>But there was also the&nbsp;unorthodox explanation.&nbsp;The readings from the star, gathered by NASA\u2019s Kepler space telescope and analyzed by a citizen-science project known as the Planet Hunters, created a stir because of a potential&nbsp;alien connection.<\/p>\n<p>The starlight from KIC 8462852 dimmed dramatically \u2013 by as much as 22 percent \u2013 on an erratic schedule during the 2011-2013 time frame.&nbsp;Last month, Penn State astronomer Jason Wright said that pattern matched what might be expected if an advanced extraterrestrial civilization were to start building an enormous energy-harvesting structure around a star. Such structures, known as&nbsp;Dyson spheres, have been the subject of speculation for decades.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Building a Dyson Sphere\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GrM3f7Bil5A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The speculation rose&nbsp;to the point that the SETI Institute kept watch on KIC 8462852, which is about 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. Nothing unusual was detected.<\/p>\n<p>Astronomers from Iowa State University didn\u2019t see anything unusual, either, when they analyzed infrared readings from the star that were collected by NASA\u2019s Spitzer Space Telescope this January. They saw no strong evidence of the dust or debris that should have been left behind by an asteroid pile-up or the catastrophic breakup of a celestial body (or, for that matter, a wrecked Dyson sphere).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe scenario in which the dimming[s] in the KIC 8462852 light curve were caused by the destruction of a family of comets remains the preferred explanation&nbsp;for the undetectable amount of infrared excess associated with the Kepler events,\u201d the team of astronomers, led by Professor Massimo Marengo, write in their research paper.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-188079 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1.png\" alt=\"pluto\" width=\"250\" height=\"189\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1.png 250w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1-200x151.png 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1-132x100.png 132w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\"><br \/>\n<strong>Science journalist Alan Boyle<\/strong>&nbsp;is the author of &#8220;The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made A Big Difference.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Comet fragments coming in rapidly on steep&nbsp;trajectories could have created a series of huge debris clouds that caused&nbsp;the starlight to dim erratically. Such&nbsp;clouds would move off quickly, restoring the star\u2019s brightness and leaving no trace of excess infrared emissions.<\/p>\n<p>Case closed? Not necessarily. The comet hypothesis isn\u2019t based as much on direct evidence as it is on the absence of evidence for alternate hypotheses. There\u2019s still a chance that a previously unknown phenomenon caused KIC 8462852\u2019s weird winking (although alien megastructures are now even farther down the list of possibilities).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt reminds me of when we first discovered pulsars,\u201d Marengo said in a NASA news release. \u201cThey were emitting odd signals nobody had ever seen before, and the first one discovered was named LGM-1 after \u2018Little Green Men.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Astronomers eventually figured out that rotating, radio-emitting neutron stars were creating the LGM-1 signal and&nbsp;lots of similar signals that were observed elsewhere subsequently. The same scenario may well play out with KIC 8462852.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe may not know yet what\u2019s going on around this star,\u201d Marengo observed. \u201cBut that\u2019s what makes it so interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>In addition to Marengo, the authors of \u201cKIC 8462852: The Infrared Flux\u201d include Alan Hulsebus and Sarah Willis<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This illustration shows a star behind a shattered comet. Observations of the star KIC 8462852 by NASA\u2019s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes suggest that its unusual light signals are probably due to dusty comet fragments that blocked the light of the star. (Credit: NASA \/ JPL-Caltech) Recent infrared observations of a star that once showed [&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":[4666,2826,5286,190,4878],"class_list":["post-19556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-alien-megastructure","tag-kepler","tag-kic-8462852","tag-nasa","tag-spitzer-space-telescope"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19556"}],"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=19556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}