Astronomers may have found giant alien 'megastructures' orbiting a star in the Milky Way

[andrew123]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/forget-water-on-mars-astronomers-may-have-just-found-giant-alien-megastructures-orbiting-a-star-near-a6693886.html

A large cluster of objects in space look like something you would "expect an alien civilization to build", astronomers have said.

Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish a report on the “bizarre†star system suggesting the objects could be a “swarm of megastructuresâ€Â, according to a new report.

"I was fascinated by how crazy it looked," Wright told The Atlantic. "Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilisation to build."

The snappily named KIC 8462852 star lies just above the Milky Way between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. It first attracted the attention of astronomers in 2009 when the Kepler Space Telescope identified it as a candidate for having orbiting Earth-like planets.

It's the cursed forerunners! Their archaic Dyson Spheres will steal our spotlight! XD XD

Edited October 31, 2015 by andrew123

[RainDreamer]

Welp, whatever it is, it is far enough from us that right now all we can do is just look and wait.

[Streetwind]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that SETI's radiotelescope check will find nothing whatsoever... and that that result will not mean anything.

It's generally theorized that as a civilization advances and it discovers radio technology, there will be about a century's worth of frenzied radio activity - maybe two at most. Afterwards, the civilization moves on to more efficient methods for long-disctance communication, like laser or quantum entanglement or what have you. Even before that transition is made, the civilization's output of radio waves shrinks gradually as more focused, more efficient transmitters and antennas are built. Humanity is already close to the stage of transition; our total radio emissions towards deep space have gone down gradually for many years now, laser comms have successfully passed multiple field tests, and quantum entanglement has been proven to work in the lab.

If we are, hypothetically, looking at a civilization advanced enough to build a swarm of orbital megastructures here, then the chance is very high that they stopped using radio transmitters a long, long time ago. Therefore, SETI will find nothing. And yet, that null result will neither prove nor disprove anything.

It'll probably take us until 2019, after the James Webb Space Telescope is set up and running, until we can get data that improves our understanding of whatever it is that we're seeing there.

[YNM]

Needs constant lightcurve coverage... EDIT : just looked it up, B V R I around 12, 12, 11, 11. Anyone willing to spend at least a full night each week just to observe the thing ? Maybe a "team" for covering it 24/7 ?

Edited October 15, 2015 by YNM

[Nibb31]

Welp, whatever it is, it is far enough from us that right now all we can do is just look and wait.

Whatever it was, 1451 years ago...

[RainDreamer]

Whatever it was, 1451 years ago...

Welp, assuming humanity doesn't just wipe itself out, we can wait a few more thousands years for the light to reach here and we see what happen next to that thing!

[andrew123]

Welp, assuming humanity doesn't just wipe itself out, we can wait a few more thousands years for the light to reach here and we see what happen next to that thing!

It opened the eye of terror.

I do hope that the civilization didn't create something that could threaten humanity in the future. Let's just hope that they don't resemble the Necrons in any way, shape, or form. On a serious note, I'm curious about the implications of the observations. Perhaps we're seeing the surviving accomplishments of a past human civilization capable of faster than light travel, from which we're descended? Perhaps it's the work of a trans dimensional species?

Edited October 15, 2015 by andrew123

[Geher]

Reminds me of this:

[Tex_NL]

Any such articles not backed up by organizations like NASA, ESA, SETI etc. have one thing in common: CLICKBAIT!

[andrew123]

Any such articles not backed up by organizations like NASA, ESA, SETI etc. have one thing in common: CLICKBAIT!

That’s when Wright, the astronomer from Penn State University and his colleague Andrew Siemion, the Director of SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) got involved. Now the possibility that the objects were created by intelligent creatures is being taken very seriously by the team.

As civilisations become more technologically advanced, they create new and better ways of collecting energy  with the end result being the harnessing of energy directly from their star. If the speculation about a megastructure being placed around the star system is correct, it could for instance be a huge set of solar panels placed around the star, scientists say.

The three astronomers want to point a radio dish at the star to look for wavelengths associated with technological civilisations. And the first observations could be ready to take place as early as January, with follow-up observations potentially coming even quicker.

“If things go really well, the follow-up could happen sooner,†Wright told The Atlantic. “If we saw something exciting… we’d be asking to go on right away.â€Â

Cough Cough

[78stonewobble]

Well my mind obviously goes to some kind of gravitationally disrupted object or collision (moon creating one?). They themselves mention an alternative of a string of comets being a bad explanation, but I'm a little curious on how they rule the others out or atleast find them unlikely?

The "debris" is confined to some sort of narrow orbit? Maybe it's getting sheparded around?

EDIT: And come on ... there's what? Over 100 billion stars in the galaxy, that something might just have happened (in astronomical terms) isn't that farfetched.

Edited October 15, 2015 by 78stonewobble

[Tex_NL]

Sure, the article talks about SETI, but nowhere does it link to ANY reliable reference material.

[magnemoe]

Probably is an dense asteroid/ dust field article talked about a lots of comets getting pulled in, another possibility is that something hit an borderland dwarf planet hard. Imagine shoemaker-levy hitting something like Vesta.

Something like similar getting to close to an planet and breaking up is another option.

[andrew123]

Sure, the article talks about SETI, but nowhere does it link to ANY reliable reference material.

I'm pretty sure it's somewhere on the SETI website or the original article. I'll take another look tomorrow, as it's 2 AM right now.

Maybe that's why I'm hyper. More glucose for me.

[Darnok]

Reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/gWYEnvMM1dA?t=3m19s

https://youtu.be/gWYEnvMM1dA?t=360 (<== question)

Not only SETI should be looking for geometric alien billboards and not only orbiting nearby starts

Because if aliens are more advanced than we are today, they have found and marked Earth loooong time ago. Leaving billboards here on Earth, so we could learn from them many things. Like how to contact aliens or what are the rules in our galaxy or laws of physics.

[78stonewobble]

https://youtu.be/gWYEnvMM1dA?t=360 (<== question)

Not only SETI should be looking for geometric alien billboards and not only orbiting nearby starts

Because if aliens are more advanced than we are today, they have found and marked Earth loooong time ago. Leaving billboards here on Earth, so we could learn from them many things. Like how to contact aliens or what are the rules in our galaxy or laws of physics.

Kinda dependent on the assumption that technology someday will make interstellar travel cheap, easy and common.

If not... Aliens might still spread out a little as backup, but not far and not to alot of places.

[Darnok]

Kinda dependent on the assumption that technology someday will make interstellar travel cheap, easy and common.

If not... Aliens might still spread out a little as backup, but not far and not to alot of places.

Agreed, but if interstellar travel won't be cheap one day... well we as humankind lost no point in doing anything.. just watch TV, eat, drink and wait for the end.

Also giving guide to entire new intelligent species even if it wouldn't be cheap IMO it would be worth it. Part of discoveries made by those aliens would survive that way.

[Kryten]

Sure, the article talks about SETI, but nowhere does it link to ANY reliable reference material.

The SETI institute are not inherently reliable, they're a group of amateurs who are inherently prone to jumping onto this kind of bandwagon.

If anybody cares to actually read it, the paper in question is freely available here. It's an odd system, yes, but there are possible explanations for it (a large comet family being favoured by the authors) that don't require extraterrestrial life, and jumping to those kind of conclusions has only done harm to both astronomy and SETI in the past.

[Streetwind]

Sure, the article talks about SETI, but nowhere does it link to ANY reliable reference material.

Erm... wut?

It links to an article on The Atlantic, which is the primary source for every single quote presented.

It links to a scientific paper exploring possible natural causes of the star's strange behavior, which is by definition a primary source, in the same breath as mentioning it.

It mentions every single involved scientist with full name and affiliation.

That's literally all the bases covered. What else should there be in your opinion?

[78stonewobble]

Agreed, but if interstellar travel won't be cheap one day... well we as humankind lost no point in doing anything.. just watch TV, eat, drink and wait for the end.

Also giving guide to entire new intelligent species even if it wouldn't be cheap IMO it would be worth it. Part of discoveries made by those aliens would survive that way.

Costly doesn't mean impossible or shouldn't be done.

[Bill Phil]

We just need more data. This is a star system extremely far away. Studying it is not easy at all.

[magnemoe]

https://youtu.be/gWYEnvMM1dA?t=360 (<== question)

Not only SETI should be looking for geometric alien billboards and not only orbiting nearby starts

Because if aliens are more advanced than we are today, they have found and marked Earth loooong time ago. Leaving billboards here on Earth, so we could learn from them many things. Like how to contact aliens or what are the rules in our galaxy or laws of physics.

Pointless if they wanted to leave an billboard they would put it on the moon.

Would be plenty of ways to leave something where who at least would be visible trough an telescope, would last for geological times and would be safe from someone disrupt it. If you left an message it would also be safe until someone was able to go to the moon and would have better chance understanding it.

---

Raises another question how much solar farms would you need for it to be visible with Kepler? My guess is a lot even if you kept them together say around an inner planet for resources and easier repairs.

[Streetwind]

We just need more data. This is a star system extremely far away. Studying it is not easy at all.

Indeed, that's why I'm putting my bet on JWST Sucks having to be patient, but assembling it is not exactly a job that can be rushed...

[PB666]

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/

Here's anither, less click baity, link. <----- before you click, want to save time read below first.

In another thread (Feynman lectures) I talked about large scale quantum uncertainty. Rather than aliens this is likely to be an example of a black swan. In this idea we assume that humans have familiarity of elements in a distribution up to a certain level of certainty, but we may not be familiar with the extremes, but we often assume that since we can predict most events that we can often anticipate the extremes; howvere this historically has proven to be wrong.

IOW, this seems a bit like hype with historical blinders on.

[Nibb31]

Agreed, but if interstellar travel won't be cheap one day... well we as humankind lost no point in doing anything.. just watch TV, eat, drink and wait for the end.

If you assume that the whole point of human life is to go interstellar, then you're in for a big disappointment. It's not going to happen during our lifetimes, so we might as well just get on with our own lives, sit back, enjoy, and wait for the end.