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

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Yeah, I don't want to discount Dyson Spheres or Rings.  We have to remain open to all possibilities.  My problem is our popular habit of going "I don't know.  Therefore Aliens did it." in the media.

Yes, it might be aliens is interesting in that it make it an SETI target, an long shot is better than aiming blind. 
Its weird and we can not explain it justify more research. 
Most likely explanation looks like something interstellar like an brown dwarf with an protoplanetary disk / ring system between the stat and us. 
That explains no IR and we don't have enough data to verify that its in orbit around the star two measures are not enough.  
An dyson ring would also give IR signature but lower than black body, 

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Most likely explanation looks like something interstellar like an brown dwarf with an protoplanetary disk / ring system between the stat and us. 

I knew!

On 29.03.2016 at 4:27 PM, kerbiloid said:

But let's hope this just a giant space moth somewhere between us and KIC 8462852, from time to time flapping with its wings.

 

[YNM]

Have they fired up ALMA on this star yet ? The last protoplanetary disk that was found (or found to have something on it) was also courtesy to ALMA, no ?

 

EDIT : Scratch that, geographic and astrometric reasons.

Edited December 26, 2016 by YNM

[SuperFastJellyfish]

Just because I'm still amazed we've imaged another solar system, here's the protoplanetary disk image from ALMA that YNM was talking about: 

From here.

[YNM]

That thing is 175 ly, KIC 8462852 is 1276 ly. I suppose the image will be smaller than the one presented here by ten times, now I see why this star will stays to be a problem.

I looked up SIMBAD and CDS and there's nothing from ALMA or so so far.

Edited December 23, 2016 by YNM

[Green Baron]

On 23.12.2016 at 3:30 PM, YNM said:

Have they fired up ALMA on this star yet ? The last protoplanetary disk that was found (or found to have something on it) was also courtesy to ALMA, no ?

How big is it ? Can Cygnus be seen from the Atacama desert ? Do they have better things to do :-) ?

 

 

Edited December 26, 2016 by Green Baron

[YNM]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

How big is it ? Can Cygnus be seen from the Atacama desert ? Do they have better things to do :-) ?

Oh yes, crap I forgot must be due to my lack of proper observation for a lot of month

Although the star's declination is ~45 deg north, ALMA's latitude is 24 deg south, in theory they should still be able to see each other, very narrowly...

Edited December 26, 2016 by YNM

[Xorth Tanovar]

On 12/22/2016 at 8:47 AM, Jonfliesgoats said:

Yeah, I don't want to discount Dyson Spheres or Rings.  We have to remain open to all possibilities.  My problem is our popular habit of going "I don't know.  Therefore Aliens did it." in the media.

But it's so fun to speculate on aliens!

 

Regardless, maybe Larry Niven got it right.... could be the Ringworld or the Puppeter's Fleet of Worlds. Though in either case, bad news for us in future. Pak Protectors for the former, Seyfert galaxy explosion for the latter.

[Green Baron]

2 hours ago, Xorth Tanovar said:

But it's so fun to speculate on aliens!

 

Absolutely. But then it's no more Science & Spaceflight but Fantasy & Fiction.

 

[Jonfliesgoats]

I don't know.  Our biggest advances in aviation and spaceflight were rooted in science fiction.  Moreover discussion of technology a few generations ahead of today's is, essentially science fiction.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

If somebody is building a Dyson sphere, where are sparkles?

I mean, if they move planet-sized masses from orbit to orbit and attach them, there would be a lot of parasite radiation, sporadic irregularities, etc, And we should see sparkles.

[Green Baron]

Well, meanwhile there are quite a few science papers that deal with the class of dimming stars. We can decide whether to play with aliens or get behind the dimming. This is no offense to nobody, just again the hint that we will not understand nature if we assume unnatural causes.

 

[UmbralRaptor]

Dust just might work after all. Though obviously additional observations will be needed...

[Aethon]

 

..Or mebbe magnetic field avalanches.  Didja think of that?

 

http://www.space.com/35165-alien-megastructure-star-dims-from-magnetic-avalanches.html

[YNM]

Flares ? Don't solar flares makes the Sun much, much brighter ? Massive starspots perhaps ? (but where are the ending flares ?)

Edited December 31, 2016 by YNM

[insert_name]

Looks like another transit is occurring 

Hype!

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a26575/something-weird-is-happening-to-the-alien-megastructure-star/

[YNM]

That would be the second time of dimming... You need more !

Now I'm really thinking this must be all one-off thing. Or whatever it is...

EDIT : Scratch that, look down K^2 post below, apparently quite periodic.

Edited May 20, 2017 by YNM

[Findthepin1]

Attention there's a dip right now 

[K^2]

And on schedule! That puts the period at 756 days, almost exactly the value expected from the first two dips.

Whatever it is, it appears to be roughly 1.83AU from the star. For that star, that puts spherical black body radiation equilibrium temperature at 302K. That's 29°C or 84°F. If it's painted a light color, might actually be closer to 20°C

So not only is this definitely in the habitable zone of the star, that's probably where we'd actually build a habitat if we had the tech for it. This is starting to get interesting now.

Edit: Alternatively, if this is a debris field of a formerly habitable world, this is getting terrifying. We might be looking at a graveyard.

Edited May 20, 2017 by K^2

[Skylon]

30 minutes ago, K^2 said:

And on schedule! That puts the period at 756 days, almost exactly the value expected from the first two dips.

Whatever it is, it appears to be roughly 1.83AU from the star. For that star, that puts spherical black body radiation equilibrium temperature at 302K. That's 29°C or 84°F. If it's painted a light color, might actually be closer to 20°C

So not only is this definitely in the habitable zone of the star, that's probably where we'd actually build a habitat if we had the tech for it. This is starting to get interesting now.

Edit: Alternatively, if this is a debris field of a formerly habitable world, this is getting terrifying. We might be looking at a graveyard.

So... how likely is this to be more than protoplanetary disk?

Stars are a lot less visible in space, right? So not worth a space telescope. Or maybe there are filters for that.

[Green Baron]

3 hours ago, K^2 said:

And on schedule! That puts the period at 756 days, almost exactly the value expected from the first two dips.

Whatever it is, it appears to be roughly 1.83AU from the star. For that star, that puts spherical black body radiation equilibrium temperature at 302K. That's 29°C or 84°F. If it's painted a light color, might actually be closer to 20°C

So not only is this definitely in the habitable zone of the star, that's probably where we'd actually build a habitat if we had the tech for it. This is starting to get interesting now.

Edit: Alternatively, if this is a debris field of a formerly habitable world, this is getting terrifying. We might be looking at a graveyard.

*sigh*

Let's put it that way: if you just want to believe you go with the aliens and internet magazines, if you want to find an explanation, you go with science.

And i believe in more findings when better technology is available. Until then, have your aliens :-)

Again: you will not understand nature if you assume unnatural causes before having ruled out the natural ones. And we are far fom doing so. And the class of dimming stars (Tabbys is just pushed by the media) most surely have a natural cause.

 

Edit: current generation telescopes are in service since 0-15 years. While some of the hardware was built slightly earlier, active and adaptive optics for example make resolution and precision much better than everything that was before.

Also our understanding of the processes in stars in only very general and superficial, i can imagine that very much more is waiting to be found out. More and more unanswered questions will arise as data is recovered, and they will most probably lead to more and more colourful speculation and after the waves have calmed maybe even to explanations of natural processes ;-)

With future generation telescopes like 30 and 40m main mirrors and many others that are planned or under construction, including space telescopes, very large baseline interferometry.

[irony] We will have much more opportunity to speculate over hypothetical constructions or floating dead aliens around their own debris (how ridiculous !). Keep your enthusiasm for future opportunities :-) [/irony]

 

Click bait generates money and maybe a certain reputation, but not knowledge :-)

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by Green Baron

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, K^2 said:

And on schedule! That puts the period at 756 days, almost exactly the value expected from the first two dips.

Whatever it is, it appears to be roughly 1.83AU from the star. For that star, that puts spherical black body radiation equilibrium temperature at 302K. That's 29°C or 84°F. If it's painted a light color, might actually be closer to 20°C

So not only is this definitely in the habitable zone of the star, that's probably where we'd actually build a habitat if we had the tech for it. This is starting to get interesting now.

Edit: Alternatively, if this is a debris field of a formerly habitable world, this is getting terrifying. We might be looking at a graveyard.

1.83 AU sounds far from the star for the habitable zone, unless i'ts large and wherefore pretty short lived, lower chance for advanced life.
As I understand tts unlikely to be an broken up planet, think Moon creation with larger speed generating an belt, this because the blocker is too cold. 
Comets could explain this somehow. 
Something interstellar between tabby and earth is unlikely with this dip, 3 dips with 756 days between and it has to be orbital.
 

[Spaceception]

4 hours ago, K^2 said:

And on schedule! That puts the period at 756 days, almost exactly the value expected from the first two dips.

Whatever it is, it appears to be roughly 1.83AU from the star. For that star, that puts spherical black body radiation equilibrium temperature at 302K. That's 29°C or 84°F. If it's painted a light color, might actually be closer to 20°C

So not only is this definitely in the habitable zone of the star, that's probably where we'd actually build a habitat if we had the tech for it. This is starting to get interesting now.

Edit: Alternatively, if this is a debris field of a formerly habitable world, this is getting terrifying. We might be looking at a graveyard.

So hypothetically, either a Dyson swarm, or what happens when you get in front of the death star.

Cool

And given the weird dips from the star... it could very well be planetary remains from an interstellar war. 

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

1.83 AU sounds far from the star for the habitable zone, unless i'ts large and wherefore pretty short lived, lower chance for advanced life.
As I understand tts unlikely to be an broken up planet, think Moon creation with larger speed generating an belt, this because the blocker is too cold. 
Comets could explain this somehow. 
Something interstellar between tabby and earth is unlikely with this dip, 3 dips with 756 days between and it has to be orbital.
 

It's an F type star a bit bigger than the sun, that's probably close to where you want to orbit. F type stars live shorter lives than the Sun, but probably long enough intelligence can emerge. A type stars are where you don't want to be.

And 1.83 AU isn't that bad, Mars orbits at around 1.5 AU

[Streetwind]

I'm just glad that this is a precisely repeating periodic event. That means that even if we don't get all the data we need on short notice this time, we can schedule JWST for the 2019 pass

[YNM]

Just asking : does the latest dips also shows a massive reduction in brightness ?