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[BigDes]

It returns to its regular light on a not defined pattern.
So basically, we don't know what causes it or even how.

So yeah, it must be aliens.
GAF is going trough a fund recollection so we can send a rocket and watch, but it would take +-2000 years to arrive there at lightspeed.

But what about at Ludicrous Speed?

 

[Omegasquash]

But what about at Ludicrous Speed?

Humanity can't handle plaid.

 

[Hari Seldon]

It returns to its regular light on a not defined pattern.
So basically, we don't know what causes it or even how.

So yeah, it must be aliens.
GAF is going trough a fund recollection so we can send a rocket and watch, but it would take +-2000 years to arrive there at lightspeed.

I just read that they should be able to figure out if it is comments from the spectrum data that they are getting from this observation, but building a rocket and waiting 2000 years is also a good plan. (It would actually be like 3500 years right? 2000 years to get there and 1500 to send the data back lol)

 

[DavidDesu]

Imagine if they're sending us a sign via this light dimming. Instead of sending radio waves or laser pulses the best beacon they can have is to use their entire star as a way to send messages. How cool would that be..

i.e. if we end up getting a contact style sign once we've recorded these dimming patterns for long enough then boom, that's it!

 

[pulsemyne]

Well we do know some things about whatever is dimming the star light. Firstly the object, or whatever it is, isn't circular as the drop in light from the star is not symmetrical. This rules out it being a planet or a partner star. Secondly the dips is light are not all the same, sometimes it drops one percent and some other much more so this rules out a singular object. Thirdly whatever is doing this is massive, current best guess is a swarm of comets but even then it would need to be a staggering amount. The amount of mass required to block out 20 percent of a suns light for several weeks is mind bending.
It's fascinating stuff. Love it to be an alien megastructure though. That would be kick arse.

 

[OfTheOverflow]

Imagine if they're sending us a sign via this light dimming. Instead of sending radio waves or laser pulses the best beacon they can have is to use their entire star as a way to send messages. How cool would that be.

But that opens us up to another big question: Would we want to make contact with aliens who are clearly show-off pricks?

 

[dinoroar]

I bet after the spectrum analysis and further study or whatever it will get even weirder and more mind boggling.



No, its in the news again because it's dimming right now.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/20/...abbys-star-alien-megastructures-light-dimming

Oh shit. Thankyou for replying to me, this is the sort of closure/excitement I'd been hoping the documentary would end on.

 

[chekhonte]

I don't want to leap to conclusions and say it's aliens so I won't. It's almost certainly not aliens and will be explained by something reasonable.

 

[Rentahamster]

What is that, a space anus?

 

[HStallion]

What is that, a space anus?

Well it is from the Fantastic Four sequel.

 

[Rentahamster]

Well it is from the Fantastic Four sequel.

So, the "Galactus is a cloud" thing wasn't a joke? I didn't watch it.

 

[Stinkles]

So, the "Galactus is a cloud" thing wasn't a joke? I didn't watch it.

Galactus was a cloud. But not a cool cloud like V'Ger.


A SHIT cloud that jst made an awful movie awful-er. Apparently Hollywood felt a stretchy boyscout and an invincible naked mercury man were Ok, but a huge dude with a helmet was not.

 

[MiddeSummer]

A failing Dyson sphere. The civilization that built it didn't successfully cross the great filter (as noted in the Fermi Paradox), and this is the last traces of their kind- a crumbling marvel inefficiently drawing power from an old star for no one to use.

We're next. No one makes it past the filter.

Spoiler

But seriously, man, I wonder what's actually out there.

 

[Rentahamster]

Galactus was a cloud. But not a cool cloud like V'Ger.


A SHIT cloud that jst made an awful movie awful-er. Apparently Hollywood felt a stretchy boyscout and an invincible naked mercury man were Ok, but a huge dude with a helmet was not.

I stand by my decision of abstinence, then. To be quite honest, I probably would have preferred to watch a movie of an actual space anus. Two of my favorite things, together at last!

 

[Fenderputty]

Imagine if they're sending us a sign via this light dimming. Instead of sending radio waves or laser pulses the best beacon they can have is to use their entire star as a way to send messages. How cool would that be..

i.e. if we end up getting a contact style sign once we've recorded these dimming patterns for long enough then boom, that's it!

How would they know we're watching? How would they know how far away their intended recipient is?

I would expect the dipping to be consistent. Like a message on repeat, if your theory was true

 

[habithipster]

What is that, a space anus?

A spanus.

 

[Sephzilla]

Galactus was a cloud. But not a cool cloud like V'Ger.


A SHIT cloud that jst made an awful movie awful-er. Apparently Hollywood felt a stretchy boyscout and an invincible naked mercury man were Ok, but a huge dude with a helmet was not.

That was Green Lantern, though

 

[Haunted Tank]

The power of the cloud!

 

[Ovid]

Another theory emerges:

It may not be aliens after all. A fresh model that might explain the so-called ”alien megastructure" star evokes only natural phenomena, such as a ringed planet that puts Saturn to shame and clouds of comets that contain more mass than Jupiter.

That included Fernando Ballesteros at the University of Valencia in Spain and his colleagues. Although they classify themselves as extragalactic astronomers, they couldn't help but focus their attention a little closer to home when Tabby's star became popular. The mystery has been the topic of debate, and now Ballesteros has come up with a solution.

The team believes a dip in 2011, which reduced the brightness of Tabby's star by up to 15 per cent, can be explained by a massive ringed planet five times the size of Jupiter transiting in front of it. Rings would help clear up why the dip was asymmetric: if they were tilted, the leading edge might block the star's light and the trailing edge might not.

A later dip in brightness, which actually consisted of a series of dips in 2013, can be explained by a trailing swarm of asteroids – much like the Trojan asteroids that share an orbit with Jupiter.

And the latest dip, observed the week before last, can be explained by the planet passing behind the star. Surprisingly, this would also create a slight dip, because any light reflecting off the planet – albeit faint – would now be hidden from view.

But the model isn't perfect. ”There are lots of problems, but at least they are only ‘scale' problems," says co-author Alberto Fernández-Soto at the University of Cantabria in Spain. In other words, we have seen these things before, just on much smaller scales, he says.

The planet, for example, would be so large that it could be a small star. And the swarm of asteroids would need to contain as much mass as Jupiter, though it's not clear whether that is physically possible.

Fernández-Soto also isn't certain whether this is the right explanation, but is sure that the star's activity will not be explained with run-of-the-mill objects — at least not in their standard sizes. ”Whatever the solution to the riddle, it's going to be exciting," he says.

newscientist.com

 

[HStallion]

Always cool to hear new theories even if they aren't aliens because a planet as big as a star, even a small one would be a mammoth find in of itself.

 

[Version 3.0]

Thread bump ALIENS oh wait...

That sounds interesting.

 

[Jetman]

Thread bump ALIENS oh wait...

Instantly the first thing everyone hopes for when they see this thread bumped, Hahahaha

 

[Himynameischris]

Always cool to hear new theories even if they aren't aliens because a planet as big as a star, even a small one would be a mammoth find in of itself.

Basically a brown dwarf,

 

[SkyOdin]

A Trojan-type asteroid cluster with as much mass as Jupiter is pretty crazy. There could multiple objects as big as the Earth clustered together in that swarm. It is an interesting possibility that at least has a prediction to test.

 

[Uhyve]

I was gonna say that the dimming would be less irregular if it was a massive planet with moons, but I guess a massive angled ring around a massive planet could possibly explain that, it's just difficult to imagine the scale required. With enough data, it seems like it could be a testable hypothesis though, which is cool.

Edit: Apparently, they're expecting another dimming in 2021. So, someone's gonna need to bump this thread in 4 years.

 

[Xe4]

A Trojan-type asteroid cluster with as much mass as Jupiter is pretty crazy. There could multiple objects as big as the Earth clustered together in that swarm. It is an interesting possibility that at least has a prediction to test.

Maybe it's a Trojan planet. They shouldn't exist because any object in an L3/L4 point has to be <<< massive than the planet causing those points in order to be stable, but if the main object blocking the star is as massive as the paper presents, it's possible.

 

[SkyOdin]

Maybe it's a Trojan planet. They shouldn't exist because any object in an L3/L4 point has to be <<< massive than the planet causing those points in order to be stable, but if the main object blocking the star is as massive as the paper presents, it's possible.

That would be awesome.

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

Basically a brown dwarf,

Not necessarily, HD 100546 b is pretty much on scale for that and maybe bigger yet it sits between the cusp of a gas giant and a brown dwarf. That's supposedly pretty close to as big as a gas giant you could find though. However that technically takes a bit of fun out of the idea of finding it since we've already found things on this scale. Not to mention there's red dwarfs smaller than Jupiter anyway. Space just loves to be awkward I guess.

 

[RSTEIN]

My theory is it's planet with an erection. As the planet passes in front of the star the erection leads which explains the assymetry.

 

[akira28]

What is that, a space anus?

wrong end. the earth is fucked.

 

[bwahhhhh]

My theory is it's planet with an erection. As the planet passes in front of the star the erection leads which explains the assymetry.

matches up well with the space anus

 

[Stinkles]

Now some new Aliens blasting music just 11 light years away:

http://www.seattlepi.com/science/ar...nals-from-a-red-dwarf-star-spark-11288900.php

The 1,000-foot-wide radio telescope at Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory will take a closer look at a red dwarf star known as Ross 128 after picking up what one astronomer said were ”some very peculiar signals" during a 10-minute observing session in May.
”The signals consisted of broadband quasi-periodic non-polarized pulses with very strong dispersion-like features," Abel Mendez, a planetary astrobiologist at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, said in an online advisory. Mendez is also director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory.


Mendez said the signal did not appear to be earthly interference, ”since they are unique to Ross 128, and observations of other stars immediately before and after did not show anything similar."

He said the most likely explanations for the signals are that they're flare-type emissions from the star, or emissions from another object in the field of view, or a radio burst from a satellite in high orbit.

Ross 128 is nearly 11 light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. (PHL @ UPR Arecibo / Aladin Sky Atlas)

”Each of the possible explanations has their own problems," Mendez wrote. He added, ”In case you are wondering, the recurrent aliens hypothesis is at the bottom of many other better explanations."

For what it's worth, Ross 128, also known as FI Virginis, has served as the setting for several science-fiction stories and video games about alien encounters. It's a little less than 11 light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

The new round of Arecibo observations is scheduled for Sunday, but Mendez said ”there are no guarantees" that those observations will solve the mystery.

”I have a Piña Colada ready to celebrate if the signals result to be astronomical in nature," he joked.

Arecibo will also take part in a multi-telescope campaign to observe Barnard's Star, a low-mass red dwarf that's less than 6 light-years away. The Red Dots campaign aims to look for evidence of planets around nearby red dwarfs. The target stars also include Proxima Centauri, which was found to harbor at least one potentially habitable planet.

 

[PantherLotus]

thank you Stinkles, it's not a Dyson Sphere, but it's a good bump worthy of this thread.

 

[Alter_Fridge]

thank you Stinkles, it's not a Dyson Sphere, but it's a good bump worthy of this thread.

Dyson Spheres are purely theoretical

 

[Stinkles]

Dyson Spheres are purely theoretical

WHAT? You mean we haven't built or photographed one?

 

[The Elite]

Maybe this deserves a separate thread?

It's exciting.

 

[Mr. Poolman]

I love this thread.

BTW, regarding the previous idea, is a a massive ringed planet five times the size of Jupiter even physically possible?

 

[paragonpro]

I dont think its someone sending a signal, is it possibly a dying star? I mean its sort of inconveavble that any race, advanced as they may be, would fuck with there own sun just to say "HEY GUYS WERE HERE HI!"

 

[BackLogJoe]

What video games has this star been in?

 

[The Elite]

Just be glad it isn't Wolf 439.

 

[Unai]

I dont think its someone sending a signal, is it possibly a dying star? I mean its sort of inconveavble that any race, advanced as they may be, would fuck with there own sun just to say "HEY GUYS WERE HERE HI!"

If you are talking about the news in the OP, no, it's not possible to be a dying star.

 

[Version 3.0]

I dont think its someone sending a signal, is it possibly a dying star? I mean its sort of inconveavble that any race, advanced as they may be, would fuck with there own sun just to say "HEY GUYS WERE HERE HI!"

Who says it's their own sun?

 

[Stinkles]

I love this thread.

BTW, regarding the previous idea, is a a massive ringed planet five times the size of Jupiter even physically possible?

Maybe but it would have to have relatively low mass or it would turn into a brown dwarf or some other quasi-stellar object I believe. Happy to be corrected.

 

[Insane Metal]

3 new dips observed, but of "only" 1 to 2 percent.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

How many dips altogeher and at what percentages for each dip? And whats the frequency of each dip? Maybe its some math code they are trying to speak to us with. Lets solve it.

 

[Prez]

3 new dips observed, but of "only" 1 to 2 percent.

They give each dip a name?

 

[Insane Metal]

How many dips altogeher and at what percentages for each dip? And whats the frequency of each dip? Maybe its some math code they are trying to speak to us with. Lets solve it.

The problem is that there's apparently no known pattern. Although they did say that if it was cloud of dust and comets like some scientists suggested, we should see a similar dip in its brightness (the one seen by Kepler, around 22%) around 2021.

They give each dip a name?

Yes now they do.

 

[nekkid]

The problem is that there's apparently no known pattern. Although they did say that if it was cloud of dust and comets like some scientists suggested, we should see a similar dip in its brightness (the one seen by Kepler, around 22%) around 2021.

Well it won't be English...

 

[Woorloog]

I presume a gas cloud passing between Earth and Tabby's star has been suggested?
Though i guess distance differences would make such quite easy to distinguish.

 

[G.ZZZ]

TIL that Skara Brae is not only a location in Bard's tale but also in the real world lol.