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[PantherLotus]

For perspective, here is 20% covering a disk:

The star in question has something blocking 22% of its light.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Aren't they able to abstract a shape from the analysis they have done, and if not will the other telescopes allow that? At least a representation of the coverage when see from our point of view, over one cycle.

Or is the dimming not recurring in a consistent pattern?

Also to gather the energy of a star without affecting a nearby planet or planets, you would want to vary your coverage to time it according to orbits so as to never block the rays from reaching the planet(s) or at least not blocking it too much (depends on your care for some or all of those planets). Something like the drawing in the post above, and open holes into it according to which planet would be otherwise blocked (varies depending on the planet's size, position, and distance).

Imagine a dynamic coverage with holes opening and closing across the surface as planets orbit around the start.

 

[Aureon]

Why would beings who are able to build amazing astronomical megastructures, that we are able to spot from over 1400 light years away, even bother? They would regards us as we would ants. A tinge of curiosity, minimum annoyance maybe, but ultimately irrelevant if we're going on with our day to day incomprehensible meaningless existence.

However if we started building Dyson Spheres, yet still carried on with our warlike aggressive tendencies, then yes, they will most likely take notice.

If you can build a dyson sphere, you can probably send explorers to your general vicinity, which is, like, 2000ly.
... Unless the speed of light is, in fact, a hard limit.

 

[SkyOdin]

Yeah, I still don't get how that breaks causality.
...

Wormholes and quantum entanglement?

Like, you open a wormhole to travel there almost instantaneously then drop off a piece of comms equipment that is "entangled" to the other piece of comms equipment. Then you can send and receive messages instantaneously across space.

Okay, I'm going to try and clarify why this stuff breaks causality. In short, it is due to the effects of relative simultaneity, as a few other posters have tried to explain. In short, there is no such thing as a universal "present time". Time is flowing differently for all objects based on how fast they are moving and in what direction they are moving.

To illustrate this, I will use an example I will call "relativistic air traffic control". Imagine that there are two base stations in the same frame of reference, but several light-years apart. Let's call these stations A and B. Now, imagine that there is also a spacecraft flying between A and B, called craft C. Spacecraft C is travelling at a significant fraction of the speed of light from A towards B. All three of these have imaginary FTL communication systems that let them communicate simultaneously with each other.

Now, let's imagine a simple message transfer. Station B sees the incoming spaceship C, and sends a message to station A requesting info on it. Now, from the perspective of the two base-tations, the transmission and reception of the information is instantaneous. However, from the perspective of craft C, station B will send the request first, and station A will receive the reply later. Note, this is not an illusion or anything, space-time just works differently for the different frames of reference.

Now, station A then sends an automated request to spaceship C to send a message to base station B. Craft C automatically complies, and relays the information to ground station B. The result? Due to the differences in what "simultaneous" means between the frames of reference, a simple relayed message has a time-delay introduced into it, one that can send the message either forwards or backwards in time from the perspective of the ground stations.

If you were to introduce a second spaceship moving in the opposite direction, things become even more confusing, since it will see transmissions between A and B happen in the opposite order that craft C does. Bounce enough messages around between these stations and craft, and you can send messages years into the past. Causality will completely break down thanks to simple air traffic control and communication relaying.

That's why FTL communication doesn't work with our knowledge of the laws of physics. Space-time just doesn't work the way people are accustomed to.

 

[DXLelouch153]

if the Aliens are benevolent i say we leave and let these TPP loving old farts rot on Earth
while were enjoying the cosmos

 

[Fuzzery]

what if it was just somthing closer that crossed the telescopes line of sight?

It's coming.

 

[PantherLotus]

The big thing passing in front of the star (the 20% dip in light) is happening every 5 to 80 days. It's not something much closer to us moving in front of the telescope.

 

[ElFly]

This and the comet loud theories seem like the simplest explanation, but the Slate article posted on the last page kinda explain that we'd see a higher IR signature from the resultant dust. Read: no dust, not a planet collision.

I think that dyson spheres and the like are supposed to rise the IR signature too, given how they are not just reflecting the light, but using it for work.

The big thing passing in front of the star (the 20% dip in light) is happening every 5 to 80 days. It's not something much closer to us moving in front of the telescope.

That's an odd period. Are we sure it is a single thing?

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Okay, I'm going to try and clarify why this stuff breaks causality. In short, it is due to the effects of relative simultaneity, as a few other posters have tried to explain. In short, there is no such thing as a universal "present time". Time is flowing differently for all objects based on how fast they are moving and in what direction they are moving.

To illustrate this, I will use an example I will call "relativistic air traffic control". Imagine that there are two base stations in the same frame of reference, but several light-years apart. Let's call these stations A and B. Now, imagine that there is also a spacecraft flying between A and B, called craft C. Spacecraft C is travelling at a significant fraction of the speed of light from A towards B. All three of these have imaginary FTL communication systems that let them communicate simultaneously with each other.

Now, let's imagine a simple message transfer. Station B sees the incoming spaceship C, and sends a message to station A requesting info on it. Now, from the perspective of the two base-tations, the transmission and reception of the information is instantaneous. However, from the perspective of craft C, station B will send the request first, and station A will receive the reply later. Note, this is not an illusion or anything, space-time just works differently for the different frames of reference.

Now, station A then sends an automated request to spaceship C to send a message to base station B. Craft C automatically complies, and relays the information to ground station B. The result? Due to the differences in what "simultaneous" means between the frames of reference, a simple relayed message has a time-delay introduced into it, one that can send the message either forwards or backwards in time from the perspective of the ground stations.

If you were to introduce a second spaceship moving in the opposite direction, things become even more confusing, since it will see transmissions between A and B happen in the opposite order that craft C does. Bounce enough messages around between these stations and craft, and you can send messages years into the past. Causality will completely break down thanks to simple air traffic control and communication relaying.

That's why FTL communication doesn't work with our knowledge of the laws of physics. Space-time just doesn't work the way people are accustomed to.

That's where the wormholes come in. There is no spaceship in between point A and B separated by many light years, no need for a delay. The wormhole stretches the fabric of space and time so that point A and B are only separated by a short distance. Communication inside the wormhole won't work I guess? But couldn't you just send information through the wormhole? I know that wormholes are theoretical but they can exist in the current mathematical framework of our understanding of physics.

I know that the light emmited from that far away star takes like 1500 years to reach earth but if a wormhole was to be used you would end up seeing the light that was emitted now on the other side if you were to peak through.

Traveling faster than light creates the paradox but if you stretch the fabric of space into a wormhole, you are not actually traveling that fast. You are just traveling less distance.

I'm sorry if I'm not making sense. I am fascinated by this stuff and I'm only self educated. I'm just trying to understand but its hard.

So I guess using wormholes you're not actually travelling FTL but seemingly so since you are reaching the destination faster than light would.

 

[Mr Swine]

I get that it would produce a shit ton of energy, but wouldn't it block out the sun at the same time? That seems like quite the downside.

And what about the heat? Wouldn't it melt down at some point?

 

[DarkKyo]

I wonder if there are alien civs out there who are harvesting the energy of stars all over the place and storing the mass quantities of energy so they'll have the power to survive long into heat death.

 

[Version 3.0]

The big thing passing in front of the star (the 20% dip in light) is happening every 5 to 80 days. It's not something much closer to us moving in front of the telescope.

Yeah. It's funny that we would think they hadn't already covered these types of possibilities. I mean, it's always possible to miss something, but this has been looked at by more than one or two absent-minded astronomers. We're not likely going to catch them with their finger over the lens.

 

[aliengmr]

So you think they drank all the wine???If there's a real UFO case, you wont get a better one than this. They even had radar readings....

No, I don't literally think they were drunk. Its just funny that a plane loaded with of all things "wine" happens upon a UFO.

What I really think is that just like every other UFO sighting, a human saw something weird. That like so many other cases it hinges on the "trained observer" fallacy. Pilots make mistakes, simple as that.

 

[DarthWoo]

So any chance this was the proving grounds of a Death Star equivalent at some point in the past?

 

[Netherscourge]

I wonder if there are alien civs out there who are harvesting the energy of stars all over the place and storing the mass quantities of energy so they'll have the power to survive long into heat death.

Heat death? Why would heat be threatening them?

 

[DarthWoo]

Heat death? Why would heat be threatening them?

Heat Death of the Universe

I'm not sure any amount of power would really do anything about that.

 

[Netherscourge]

Is it possible the star is simply unstable?

That it's going through some sort of uneven Nuclear Fusion, which is emitting different levels of light, including periodic dark spots that would skew the IR spectrum?

All we see is a periodic dimming of light. Maybe 20% of the star's surface is cooler than the rest at times?

If it's only happening between 5 to 80 days, perhaps it's just large, surface-level sun spots.

 

[SkyOdin]

That's where the wormholes come in. There is no spaceship in between point A and B separated by many light years, no need for a delay. The wormhole stretches the fabric of space and time so that point A and B are only separated by a short distance. Communication inside the wormhole won't work I guess? But couldn't you just send information through the wormhole? I know that wormholes are theoretical but they can exist in the current mathematical framework of our understanding of physics.

I know that the light emmited from that far away star takes like 1500 years to reach earth but if a wormhole was to be used you would end up seeing the light that was emitted now on the other side if you were to peak through.

Traveling faster than light creates the paradox but if you stretch the fabric of space into a wormhole, you are not actually traveling that fast. You are just traveling less distance.

I'm sorry if I'm not making sense. I am fascinated by this stuff and I'm only self educated. I'm just trying to understand but its hard.

So I guess using wormholes you're not actually travelling FTL but seemingly so since you are reaching the destination faster than light would.

Method doesn't matter. Any system that transmits information faster that the speed of light has the potential to result in time travel, since space and time are fundamentally two parts of the same whole. My example didn't rely on the existence of the spacecraft for the system to work. I was simply presuming that some kind of point-to-point instantaneous communication system existed. It could have been a device that used quantum entanglement, or it could have been linked wormholes (which would require three pairs: A to B, B to C, and C to A). My example just demonstrates that any such system can immediately result in time paradoxes from normal usage. I used a spaceship moving at high relativistic speeds as a clear example, but in truth, relativistic effects do occur even at normal speeds, they are just really small. However, those relativistic effects are still just big enough to cause clock errors on satellites and such. So the effects of non-simultaneity due to relativity can't be ignored.

Now, I believe that wormholes are a theoretical solution to the equations we use to describe the laws of physics, albeit one that hasn't yet been proven to exist yet. We don't know if they actually can exist or not yet. However, from what I gather, those same models predict that wormholes might self-destruct if arranged in any situation that might allow time-travel. Therefore, there might be all sorts of limitations based on unintuitive physics. I'd probably need to know a lot more about general relativity than I currently do in order to comment properly.

Is it possible the star is simply unstable?

That it's going through some sort of uneven Nuclear Fusion, which is emitting different levels of light, including periodic dark spots that would skew the IR spectrum?

All we see is a periodic dimming of light. Maybe 20% of the star's surface is cooler than the rest at times?

If it's only happening between 5 to 80 days, perhaps it's just large, surface-level sun spots.

I'm pretty sure I read that the scientists have already ruled out the possibility that it is just sun spots. They have already been considering a large number of different possibilities, and have at least ruled out sunspots, planetary dust, and a few others. They haven't ruled out every possibility yet, and we are still lacking data on this star, so there is still lots of possible alternatives to this being an artificial structure.

 

[Aureon]

I believe it has been proved that information can be transmitted.

No, and actually there's a theorem about the fact that you can't - no-communication theorem.

 

[DarkKyo]

Heat Death of the Universe

I'm not sure any amount of power would really do anything about that.

If you had an unimaginable amount of power saved, whose to say you wouldn't have the tech to use that power to maintain your form in the uniform soup of blackness? Especially if your entire civilization has transferred their consciousness to be stored in a massive console of some sort. You wouldn't need the universe's resources(food, water) to survive if you had an enormous pool of energy and no bodily requirements.

Then it would just be that console maintaining its form and power output for as long as possible until you either finally run out of power or the next random quantum fluctuation event(big bang) happens.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

If you had an unimaginable amount of power saved, whose to say you wouldn't have the tech to use that power to maintain your form in the uniform soup of blackness? Especially if your entire civilization has transferred their consciousness to be stored in a massive console of some sort. You wouldn't need the universe's resources(food, water) to survive if you had an enormous pool of energy and no bodily requirements.

Then it would just be that console maintaining its form and power output for as long as possible until you either finally run out of power or the next random quantum fluctuation event(big bang) happens.

Maybe there are multiple universes!

 

[Stinkles]

Maybe there are multiple universes!

There's an excellent chance that's true.

 

[params7]

Whatever it is, it has sparked my imagination. What a time to be alive, eh?

Meh. I'd trade this period for a time when most of earth was unexplored, or in the future when the universe opens up to be conquered by Homo Sapiens.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

Meh. I'd trade this period for a time when most of earth was unexplored, or in the future when the universe opens up to be conquered by Homo Sapiens.

The past is never the way to go, man.

 

[Dicer]

We need contact with other beings already, it's time and we frankly need the fucking perspective, will rattle some folks for sure, but they need rattling...

 

[DarkKyo]

Meh. I'd trade this period for a time when most of earth was unexplored, or in the future when the universe opens up to be conquered by Homo Sapiens.

 

[Lord Panda]

I disagree, finding a lifeform more advanced than we are would be a huge wake up call. We are competitive by nature. If we see that someone else can build something like a Dyson ring we're going to want to match or exceed them. Our entire philosophy on life and what it means to be human would change.

Well we would still be 1400 years behind.

 

[Trouble]

Well we would still be 1400 years behind.

Even more incentive.

The big thing, IMO, is if we find a space-going civilization we could learn a ton via observation of radio waves and such. Quite likely the things we'd learn would accelerate our own advancement. To me that is the most exciting thing, even if there is no chance we could ever meet or even communicate with another intelligent species for thousands of years.

 

[Slayer-33]

This is batshit crazy.. I can't wait for them to find out the truth.

 

[Lé Blade Runner]

Yeah, gotta say, I'm not really getting hyped about this one. I think people are letting their excitement run away with them. The paper itself posits a few possible explanations other than the alien one.

But isn't that one of the finer qualities in life? That you can let your excitement run away and paint fantastic pictures of a reality that will probably never be, but are exciting to think about?

 

[Jason's Ultimatum]

impossible.

 

[Slayer-33]

impossible.

Noo

 

[Jason's Ultimatum]

But isn't that one of the finer qualities in life? That you can let your excitement run away and paint fantastic pictures of a reality that will probably never be, but are exciting to think about?

Oh, definitely. I always dream about a 100ft marshmallow man terrorizing NYC.

 

[Funyarinpa]

But isn't that one of the finer qualities in life? That you can let your excitement run away and paint fantastic pictures of a reality that will probably never be, but are exciting to think about?

This is the allure of any fiction.

...I love fiction.

 

[Jason's Ultimatum]

Noo

Nobody ever gets my reference. It's from interstellar!

 

[Shaanyboi]

Mass Effect Relay. Let's go!

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

Nobody ever gets my reference. It's from interstellar!

Sounds more like a random word than a reference. And I don't think anyone would associate it with interstellar. You might want to try some love.

 

[Jason's Ultimatum]

Sounds more like a random word than a reference. And I don't think anyone would associate it with interstellar. You might want to try some love.

Oh I know. Kinda hard to figure it out. This is a space thread, too. I say impossible, like Anne Hathaway said, then someone quotes me saying what Matthew said, "No, it's necessary."

 

[God of Gamblers]

Not if the sphere is constructed of multiple layers.The inner layer would give off ridiculous levels of heat but the outer layers will then absorb this kinetic energy thus utilizing 100% of the stars energy.

You can't block the energy of a star completely. If you construct a sphere to completely encase a star, that sphere would ultimately start to heat up and radiate that heat in the form of black-body radiation. That sort of infrared light can be detected, and is one of the theoretical methods of discovering a Dyson sphere.

Otherwise though, the rest of your idea of using a Dyson sphere as a long-range open communication device works out. You could theoretically pulse the light (be it visible or infrared) as a means of sending a signal out to the rest of the galaxy. I'm not sure what you mean by a "mass frequency" though.

At the very least, it is more likely than inventing a form of FTL communication. People bring that up casually as a possibility, but I don't think people realize exactly why most physicists consider c to be the hard speed limit for the transmission of information. The simple answer is that FTL communication would immediately result in the violation of causality. If you were to try to send out a message at superluminal speeds, you could easily receive the response to that message before you even finish composing the message in the first place. That is, it is possible to receive a reply to a message you never wrote. FTL communication itself is the only prerequisite to this paradox. Thus, FTL communication breaks causality, and is a form of time travel.

 

[Lovely Salsa]

What are we assuming here? That aliens built something larger than Earth? yea....its not aliens

 

[raphier]

What are we assuming here? That aliens built something larger than Earth? yea....its not aliens

not larger than earth, but has covered a star with platforms, turning it into a Dyson Sphere

To think our earth is covered with cities and roads, now think if we took all that mass and put it into our atmosphere, you would see one-fifth of earth covered, if not more if we build with purpose. It's likely possible in a very industrial society.

Either way, it's a fun concept to talk about.
.

 

[legacyzero]

what if it was just somthing closer that crossed the telescopes line of sight?

ROGUE PLANET OMG

 

[Slayer-33]

Collecting a stars energy is insanely intriguing.

The potential is mindblowing.

Imagine that the key to reaching other stars is your resident solar system star? Fuck.

 

[Cyber Caesar]

I wonder if there are alien civs out there who are harvesting the energy of stars all over the place and storing the mass quantities of energy so they'll have the power to survive long into heat death.

Where does all that matter go after the big rip?

 

[CrunchyFrog]

Collecting a stars energy is insanely intriguing.

The potential is mindblowing.

Imagine that the key to reaching other stars is your resident solar system star? Fuck.

Fucking zergs in Alpha Centauri get the start with a binary star system though. OP as hell, Blizz needs to go back to the drawing board and rebalance this mofo.

 

[xandaca]

Quagaars

 

[pestul]

We need to get that JWST up stat. Having said that, it would be both scary as hell and exciting if it quickly started discovering multiple cosmic megastructures.

 

[Chiaroscuro]

Fucking zergs in Alpha Centauri get the start with a binary star system though. OP as hell, Blizz needs to go back to the drawing board and rebalance this mofo.

Alpha Centuri is not a binary system (is a triple system). Hurry up!

 

[Khaz]

That's why FTL communication doesn't work with our knowledge of the laws of physics. Space-time just doesn't work the way people are accustomed to.

Nope, I still don't get it. You keep talking about perspective, or "relative to" an external observer. What seems to be the order of events don't really matter, causality is about the actual flow of events at a single point in space.

A and B are communicating with supra-luminic tools. Can B send a message to A's past from A's perspective? It doesn't matter if from B's perspective it was received in A's past, if A doesn't experience it that way. The analogy with the speed of light and sound difference seems correct, it just sounds like there is a discrepancy in the order of events, but there isn't really.

 

[The Technomancer]

Nope, I still don't get it. You keep talking about perspective, or "relative to" an external observer. What seems to be the order of events don't really matter, causality is about the actual flow of events at a single point in space.

A and B are communicating with supra-luminic tools. Can B send a message to A's past from A's perspective? It doesn't matter if from B's perspective it was received in A's past, if A doesn't experience it that way. The analogy with the speed of light and sound difference seems correct, it just sounds like there is a discrepancy in the order of events, but there isn't really.

Spacetime cares a hella lot about information about events (in part because that's sort of what events really are).They're right that in the "spaceships in flight" situation you actually can literally send information into the past. Maybe this is one that would actually be better with equations, let me see if I can find a good piece that goes through them in an understandabe way