I'm not saying this is aliens, but....

[WarriorPoet 352]

What if they're building a Death Star, and all the variations are supplies being delivered?

[Biophysical 15,761]

Not to harp on the ET thing, but a megastructure under construction would pretty much look like this, right?

[treybert 893]

Not to harp on the ET thing, but a megastructure under construction would pretty much look like this, right?

 

In one scifi book I read, a dyson sphere was made by a series of linked orbiting platforms circling the sun and not 1 giant super structure. The more platforms, the more of the sun's energy is absorbed and blocked. 

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

Not to harp on the ET thing, but a megastructure under construction would pretty much look like this, right?

There is a paper floating out there about hypothetical upper limits for building a structure that could dim a star over time. Apparently this long term dimming is much too fast. But what do they know about aliens? Basically nothing.

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

What if they're building a Death Star, and all the variations are supplies being delivered?

This Death Star would be bigger than Jupiter.

[WarriorPoet 352]

That's no space station.... It's a gas giant!

[Clangador 13]

Update on the weirdest star in the Milky Way: in addition to the recent dips the star has had a longterm fade in brightness for as far back as we can measure. Comet hypothesis is probably dead, but I don't think anyone has any explanation, natural or sentient, for this new finding. It is completely bizarre.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1601.03256

This needs more observation and study before we really get an idea about what's going on. Perhaps the next generation of space telescopes will receive reveal some answers.

[Biophysical 15,761]

Not to harp on the ET thing, but a megastructure under construction would pretty much look like this, right?

There is a paper floating out there about hypothetical upper limits for building a structure that could dim a star over time. Apparently this long term dimming is much too fast. But what do they know about aliens? Basically nothing.

That would basically say: if it was a megastructure, it wasn't built the way that we were guessing".

Maybe it's a megastructure that is being moved into place after transit from another star, as if we weren't already talking about unimaginably huge projects anyway.

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

Update on the weirdest star in the Milky Way: in addition to the recent dips the star has had a longterm fade in brightness for as far back as we can measure. Comet hypothesis is probably dead, but I don't think anyone has any explanation, natural or sentient, for this new finding. It is completely bizarre.http://arxiv.org/abs/1601.03256

This needs more observation and study before we really get an idea about what's going on. Perhaps the next generation of space telescopes will receive reveal some answers.

Yea maybe. JWST will go up in a couple years, but somehow I doubt this star will be a priority.

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

Not to harp on the ET thing, but a megastructure under construction would pretty much look like this, right?

There is a paper floating out there about hypothetical upper limits for building a structure that could dim a star over time. Apparently this long term dimming is much too fast. But what do they know about aliens? Basically nothing.

That would basically say: if it was a megastructure, it wasn't built the way that we were guessing".

Maybe it's a megastructure that is being moved into place after transit from another star, as if we weren't already talking about unimaginably huge projects anyway.

My pet theory is that it a large mega structure being built by swarm of replicators. Like a HUGE, slowly-growing swarm. It explains how a structure larger than any non-star could exist and how a star could slowly dim. I haven't seen any new natural explanations since this new paper.

I really hope this gets answered within my lifetime. I can't stand mysteries.

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

Interview with the author here, apparently.

http://www.wowsignalpodcast.com/2016/01/season-3-episode-3-slow-and-fast.html?m=1

I haven't had a chance to listen yet.

[WarriorPoet 352]

Oh, sith. They're building Starkiller Base. It all makes sense.

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

Podcast above is definitely worth a listen. Ignore the poor production quality at the start, the interview is really great. His explanation for the next step in studying this star is pretty cool.

Basically amateur astronomers all over the world are waiting for another dip to start and then larger telescopes will try to catch some real data on spectroscopy and the like for the object(s) causing the dip.

Edited January 19, 2016 by TasteTheRainbow

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

http://www.popsci.com/alien-megastructure-star-only-gets-more-mysterious

Longterm dimming not robust according to new study. Little blips still very hard to explain/unexplained.

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

Longterm dimming confirmed and probably stronger than first suspected. Anyone who tells you this isn't the strongest evidence of advanced civilizations beyond our own is just plain mistaken. I'm not saying it's solid proof or anything, but the longer we look the farther away its behavior gets from explainable.

http://earthsky.org/space/tabbys-star-more-weirdness

[ViscerothSWG 3,940]

mmhmm. alien superstructure that drains star. where have I heard that one before...

 

[SEApocalypse 4,443]

… must be rocks. Which iiirc is already confirmed as the article is from 2015.

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

… must be rocks. Which iiirc is already confirmed as the article is from 2015.

Nah, they ruled out any swarm of known debris(asteroids, comets, oort cloud objects) by looking for an IR signature. Got nothing. Doesn't mean it can't still be rocks, but if it is they are behaving differently than we believe is possible.

Edited August 16, 2016 by TasteTheRainbow

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

the next few days and weeks might be very exciting. We caught the star at the start of a dimming event. Spectroscopy should get some answers if it's anything even remotely natural.

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

On 1/16/2016 at 0:01 PM, Clangador said:

This needs more observation and study before we really get an idea about what's going on. Perhaps the next generation of space telescopes will receive reveal some answers.

Real answers happening right now!

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

On 8/11/2016 at 8:47 PM, ViscerothSWG said:

mmhmm. alien superstructure that drains star. where have I heard that one before...

 

Heh. It would have to be about 10,000-1,000,000 X bigger than Starkiller Base. Dipped a few percent on a large star over the last few days. And still dropping. That's more than Jupiter does to our sun's light.

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

On 1/16/2016 at 2:19 PM, Biophysical said:

That would basically say: if it was a megastructure, it wasn't built the way that we were guessing".

Maybe it's a megastructure that is being moved into place after transit from another star, as if we weren't already talking about unimaginably huge projects anyway.

Could be. If this dip is larger than the last dip and if the light that dips is evenly distributed across the spectrum it'll be real hard to explain away.

[Biophysical 15,761]

13 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

Real answers happening right now!

Any good sources to follow for updates?

[TasteTheRainbow 8,726]

2 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Any good sources to follow for updates?

That Reddit thread is the place they're using to coordinate. There's one false alarm in there that pointed at ice/dust but it turned out that amount of wavelength wobble wasn't significant. Otherwise good comments and data links.

[Biophysical 15,761]

40 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

That Reddit thread is the place they're using to coordinate. There's one false alarm in there that pointed at ice/dust but it turned out that amount of wavelength wobble wasn't significant. Otherwise good comments and data links.

Thanks!