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Star exhibits strange light patterns which could be a sign of alien activity
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QuantumZebra
Member
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PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
1. Absolutely my favorite thread to see bumped in my subs.
2. I know the physics wouldn't work, but could someone explain why it couldn't just be a half-lit star?
2. I know the physics wouldn't work, but could someone explain why it couldn't just be a half-lit star?
Dhruv_hanom
Member
Better get that to Mars and start worshiping it as the Machine God
Because it's not consistently dim, it's changing in luminosity. IE it looks like something is occasionally blocking it by various amounts. Probably. Maybe.
Start believing.
Sectorseven
Member
Probably just some space gas.
Himynameischris
Member
if it was 'half-lit' it would just be an entirely different type of star, brightness/luminosity/size/age would all be different.
Dash_Riprock
Member
I would say beam a transmission over there, but then I remembered the plot of Battleship...
Only you do
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
Huh. I was trying to get at something more basic: do we know 'something' is blocking the star's light or could this be the star itself?
QuantumZebra
Member
Nonono
Dark matter would be detected in a different way and wouldn't (shouldn't) have any affect on the luminosity of a star.
This is also not "space gas" or a debris field as nothing of that nature could cause dips like this.
Its looking more and more like we're seeing something of this nature:
If I'm wrong feel free to point out
There is no way for a star to dim at certain angles/times in this way (its an all or nothing thing with stars - they wouldn't lose luminosity in random spots).
There's no known mechanism for a star to dim in this manner (long duration dimming over a century, with large brightness drops of shorter duration), so blocking material of some kind is the operating assumption.
ATOMICJORGE
Member
Himynameischris
Member
it would be extremely unlikely that it's the star itself based on the observations from other stars, it just wouldn't fit into any models we have for the life stages of stars however I won't say it's impossible because we just don't know, the more likely explanation is that something else is affect it's brightness though.
CrunchyFrog
Member
Not that I think we have anywhere near enough to confirm it yet, but I'm genuinely curious how does humanity hypothetically handle the news that we're not the only intelligent beings in the universe and that this is our first evidence? Or even crazier, that what's causing the fluctuations is a large artificial object proving these beings' capabilities far beyond our own?
Trump will just say its all liberal media lies. Should you really trust scientists with this kind of stuff? They created the A Bomb!
QuantumZebra
Member
It is expected in almost all theoretical projections that an advanced civilization (beyond ours) would utilize the energy of a star (there is 0 reason not to).
In other words, a dyson ring/sphere is the easiest way to find an alien civilization, and the most likely to be verifiable.
dragonzdogma
Member
If the light from the stars is a light from the past
than what if these Aliens are dead already or have already left?
than what if these Aliens are dead already or have already left?
More importantly, how do we handle the idea that if this is truly evidence of extra terrestrial life, then this structure was built yeeeeeeeeeeeears ago. How many light years away is this star from us? They could be so far beyond our comprehension as a species if so.
If we eventually come to a conclusion that this is an alien structure of some kind, I have no doubt that we'd begin making strides to find a way to get to it/get a probe to it.
Sapiens
Member
If it is a civilization or an AI of some sort, I wonder if it would use this dimming pattern to communicate with other potential observers. It's a great way to do it, maybe.
1500 lys - if they are progressing at an exponential rate, their technology could be even more staggering than what people are theorizing today/
1500 lys - if they are progressing at an exponential rate, their technology could be even more staggering than what people are theorizing today/
This is always a very good chance. Its why if we actually received a signal from an alien species it wouldn't mean much because by the time it reached us that species most likely changed quite a good deal or might be gone completely.
Mass denial and lots of conspiracy theories...
More seriously I doubt it would affect us all that much. Its far too far away for any communication to take place, sending a message and receiving one back would take around 3000 years. Obviously for the same reason traveling there is kinda out of the question.
Religious people might have some issues and rethinking to do though.
Although I guess the fact that this is happening 1500 years ago means this hypothetical alien race might be advanced enough to reach us...
DeadlyParasite
Member
Assuming this is some kind of dyson sphere-like object that would reveal a lot of interesting and uncomfortable things. We are not alone, they can build things on a massive scale (stations, warships, weapons), they have efficient/viable interstellar travel to transport the materials in order to build such an object, they or another alien species could be closer than we think.
I can't wait until we develop even better telescope and imagery technology to get a bigger picture.
I can't wait until we develop even better telescope and imagery technology to get a bigger picture.
Sapiens
Member
The pope's already said that aliens would be classified as Jesus's bros. Lot of smart astronomers at the vatican, they probably see some sort of evidence of intelligent life as an inevitability and informed that pope that he needs to get ahead of it.
He'd be like, "I called it, and until we get a return on our message 3000 years from now, take my word for it, aliens are against gay marriage too."
Eh, just send strong radio/micro/whatever waves in a pattern that is unmistakably artificial. Or shine a sufficiently powerful laser at other place. Far easier to do than building something to obstruct a star. Any technologically advanced thing can detect those most likely.
No sense of wasting energy to do something elaborate for communication.
Sectorseven
Member
Does the gathered data make it easier to discover similar phenomena closer to our own galaxy?
CrunchyFrog
Member
FWIW, Roman Catholicism takes no issue with the idea of the existence of extraterrestrial life, intelligent or no, though whether those beings are as privileged as humanity is in context of God's revelation is a matter that is still somewhat debated (although with most consensus leaning no)
Caayn
Member
If news reaches earth now we'd see Trump giving speeches about building walls around our solar system to keep the alien workers out.
We've already got top men and women working on it.
It's pretty close to us on a galactic scale. It's only ~1.4% the size of our galaxy away from us.
The star is 1,480 light years from Earth. If it is in fact a dyson sphere, it was built or under construction in 536 AD, around the time that Justinian was trying to reconquer the former Western Roman Empire from Constantinople.
What if what's blocking it is their enormous space ship as it's coming right for us? What if they're already here?
Agreed.
Ya'll talking about Aliens and Dyson Spheres and I can't believe.
I mean, it would be awesome, but I think there must be something else that we don't know about space yet.
Still, love to see this thread bumping, been following since day one, even though I don't participate much because I don't know much lol
I mean, it would be awesome, but I think there must be something else that we don't know about space yet.
Still, love to see this thread bumping, been following since day one, even though I don't participate much because I don't know much lol
Logically It's either a Halo ring or Elysium.
echoshifting
Banned
I love this thread so much. God, what a ride. I believe.
PeskyToaster
Member
What's taking them so long to get here?
SuperBanana
Banned
So a Dyson sphere? Yay!
This is our own galaxy. 1400 light years away is pretty close to us in galactic terms. The Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across.
Amazing.
I've updated the OP with this and some of the other developments surrounding Tabby's Star. Been quite a ride so far and still the mystery remains...
Sectorseven
Member
Oops, I meant solar system.
DeadlyParasite
Member
When it's not dim do we know what kind of sized star this is compared to our own sun?
Lots of Sci fi and even speculative science posits that aliens may sublimate into a non physical form for efficiency and that could happen before massive structures like this would naturally arise - a viable explanation for the Fermi paradox.
QuantumZebra
Member
that's the reason this finding is so big
we do know everything that is going on here - we know a star cannot exhibit that sort of dimming without an artificial superstructure revolving around it - as the article said, even a Jupiter-sized object would barely be a blip compared to this dimming.
This is some real shit, yall
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