At one point in the middle of the constellations of Lyra and the Swan, which adorn the starry night in the northern hemisphere, shines a star shrouded in mystery. Our vision can not see it because of the 1500 years-light separating us from it. Only even the powerful telescopic eyes of the space observatory Kepler have been able to focus, in 2009, the distant sun.
Until recently, the call KIC 8462852, which in this text is affectionately called K, was just one of the approximately 150 000 stars monitored by the telescope searching for tiny periodic light variations that indicated the presence of exoplanets . Faced with the overwhelming amount of data to be analyzed, the astronomers decided to ask for help from scientists citizens by Planet Hunters collaborative project.
One in 150 000 In 2011, several volunteers started to label K as “curious” and even “bizarre” because they noticed she had a very behavior but very funny . The pattern of oscillation her light was really only , different from what was seen in all the other stars studied by the Kepler telescope. In fact, there was a pattern there as well. – As astronomers discovered later variations in brightness are completely deformed and uneven
Some lasted for days. One of the objects blocked 15% of the released light, and another prevented the passage of impressive 22% of the emitted photons. No planet does. When the gas giants Jupiter class, the largest that we know, pass in front of the parent star, they cause a wobble of about 1% of its luminosity. According to astronomer Phil Plait, the Slate site, to cause an effect of these, the object must be half the size of K , which is even more massive, hotter and brighter than the sun.
Taking into account all the peculiarities, it is difficult not to think of aliens. “We’ve never seen anything like that star, it was very strange,” said Tabetha Boyajian to The Atlantic. The astronomer at Yale University has just published a paper describing the discovery, co-authored with several of citizen scientists. “We think they should be given bad or move the spaceship, but all beat.”
natural causes? If the star system of K was young, as our once was, it would house a huge c inturão objects such as asteroids and comets , who have not yet had time to form planets. They could explain the exotic pattern, but the problem is that this star seems to be more mature. Young stars are surrounded by a thick cloud of dust that emits a large amount of infrared radiation, which does not happen in this case. In the article, Boyajian details some possible natural explanations that could solve the mystery.
Beyond the asteroid belt, it is contemplated the possibility of the objects have emerged of a Impact planetary scale , such as that formed our moon, or another scenario more likely. The gravitational influence of a nearby star may have “pushed” a massive number of comets to the innermost region of that solar system.
Why not aliens? But the very Tabetha Boyajian consider “other scenarios.” In a nutshell, think it possible that an advanced alien civilization is building a technology mega-structure around the star KIC 8462852 , and this was causing the strange fluctuations in the detected light. Such a structure could be something like the hypothetical Dyson Sphere:. Proposal in 1960, the idea conceived a solar panel arrangement that “enclose” a star and collect all the energy it emits
Structure can be a solar panel arrangement that “enclose” a star and collect the energy emitted
Boyajian is not alone in considering this scenario. “Aliens must always be the last case scenario to consider, but it seemed like something that an alien civilization would build,” said astronomer Jason Wright of Penn State University. The researcher said that when he saw the data, was fascinated by how crazy they were. Phil Plait, the Slate site, was keen to stress that Wright is not just another one of those alien hunters who like a conspiracy theory. “He is a professional astronomer with a solid historical research” he wrote.
This is all very exciting and we can, yes, get excited – after all it is not every day that real scientists include in their chances the alternative “alien civilization.” But of course their approach remains skeptical, more towards a “why not aliens?”. It’s likely that some phenomenon of nature is causing the variations in brightness of K, but the chance of being ETs is concrete .
Both Jason Wright and colleagues will publish an article basing this assumption – they claim the star light pattern is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures” designed by aliens to collect starlight and energy. Wright and Boyajian are now in touch with Andrew Siemion, director of the SETI Institute, an organization that scans the airwaves of the cosmos in search of intelligent life.
They will write a proposal with the idea of trying to point out a giant radio telescope to detect and see if K radio waves in frequencies associated with technological activity . If all goes well, the first observation should take place in January. Until then, we can only look up at the starry sky and aim to where the swan is the lyre. For now, until the cold evidence allows us to imagine that maybe, just maybe, someone is looking back, his eyes capturing photons that have broken off of our sun around the year 500 and traveled a millennium and a half the space.
Via The Atlantic and Slate
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