[vox_mundi]

Has Kepler Discovered an Alien Megastructure?

Look between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, and there sits a star, around 1,481 light years away, named KIC 8462852. This star is the most interesting thing in the galaxy right now.



... A star, named KIC 8462852, has been found with a highly curious transit signal. In a paper submitted to the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomers, including citizen scientists from the Planet Hunters crowdsourcing program, report: “Over the duration of the Kepler mission, KIC 8462852 was observed to undergo irregularly shaped, aperiodic dips in flux down to below the 20 percent level.”

The research paper is thorough, describing the phenomenon, pointing out that this star is unique - we’ve seen nothing like it. Kepler has collected data on this star steadily for four years. It’s not instrumental error. Kepler isn’t seeing things; the signal is real.

“We’d never seen anything like this star,” Tabetha Boyajian, a postdoctorate researcher at Yale University and lead author, told The Atlantic. “It was really weird. We thought it might be bad data or movement on the spacecraft, but everything checked out.”

Follow-up studies focus on two interesting transit events at KIC 8462852, one that was detected between days 788 and 795 of the Kepler mission and between days 1510 to 1570. The researchers have tagged these events as D800 and D1500 respectively.

The D800 event appears to have been a single transit causing a star brightness drop-off of 15 percent, whereas D1500 was a burst of several transits, possibly indicating a clump of different objects, forcing a brightness dip of up to 22 percent. To cause such dips in brightness, these transiting objects must be huge. Whatever was causing the dips, it could not have been a planet — even a Jupiter-sized planet, the biggest in our solar system, would only dim this star by 1 percent as it transited across, Slate reported.



This may sound like science fiction, but our galaxy has existed for over 13 billion years, it’s not such a stretch of the imagination to think that an alien civilization may be out there and evolved to the point where they can build megastructures around stars.

“Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build,” Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, told The Atlantic.

Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish a report on the “bizarre” star system suggesting the objects could be a “swarm of megastructures”, according to a new report.

The strange star that has serious scientists talking about an alien megastructure

In 1400 years, when light reaches it, they will look in our direction and wonder why the CO2 is suddenly rising on the third rock from the Sun. Maybe they'll come and visit and find that we toasted the place.

[GHung]

{Just to lighten things up around here...}

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 93886.html

Astronomers may have found giant alien 'megastructures' orbiting star near the Milky Way

A star identified by the Kepler Space Telescope may harbour structures which could point to an adanced technological civilisation.

A large cluster of objects in space look like something you would "expect an alien civilization to build", astronomers have said.

Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish a report on the “bizarre” star system suggesting the objects could be a “swarm of megastructures”, according to a new report.

"I was fascinated by how crazy it looked," Wright told The Atlantic. "Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilisation to build."......

Has Kepler Discovered an Alien Megastructure?
http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-l ... 151014.htm

Has Kepler revealed evidence for a technologically advanced civilization around a star only 1500 light-years away? That's one exciting, if unlikely, interpretation of recent transit data.

NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope is tasked with finding small, rocky worlds orbiting distant stars. However, exoplanets aren’t the only thing Kepler can detect — stellar flares, star spots and dusty planetary rings can also pop up in the mission’s observations.

But there’s also been speculation that Kepler may have the ability to detect more than natural phenomena; if they’re out there, Kepler may also detect the signature of artificial structures orbiting other stars. Imagine an advanced civilization that’s well up on the Kardashev scale and has the ability to harness energy directly from its star. This hypothetical alien civilization may want to construct vast megastructures, like supersized solar arrays in orbit around their host star, that could be so big that they blot out a sizable fraction of starlight as they pass in front....

The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to utilize.[1] The scale has three designated categories called Type I, II, and III. A Type I civilization uses all available resources on its home planet, Type II harnesses all the energy of its star, and Type III of its galaxy.[2] The scale is only hypothetical, but it puts energy consumption in a cosmic perspective. It was first proposed in 1964 by the Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev. Various extensions of the scale have been proposed since, from a wider range of power levels (types 0, IV and V) to the use of metrics other than pure power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

So, if other intelligent species have survived their technological infancy and escaped their planetary boundaries, can't we? What would it take? Is it too late for humanity to make the leap? Have we advanced too quickly, or not quickly enough?

Children,, playing with fire.

[Plantagenet]

Sure sounds like a Dyson sphere. Why not? The universe is a big place. There's plenty of room for multiple intelligent species to independently evolve.


Dyson sphere

[Sixstrings]

Fascinating.

I'd like to hear more exact detail about the transits.

It sounds like SOMETHING big. Kepler has looked at LOT of stars in the universe -- and then the software weeds them all out and kicks up the tiny percentage of interesting things to look at, then human scientists take a closer look at what the computer kicked up.

They generally study exoplanets, so they set the filter to study various kinds of planets and we've learned so much about planets in the galaxy.

Now from what I've read above, this is quite interesting -- one transit blocked the star by 15% and another by 22%!

It's impossible, that it's a planet. Even if it were jupiter sized, it should only be a 1% light block.

The articles posted on this are bit light on detail and explanation, but if I'm understanding it right aren't they saying they looked at the star for 4 years and then NOW these things show up? So that wouldn't be a planet. It's something that just went into orbit around that star (new alien construction, or traveling aliens). Unless it's got a 4 year orbit, but that's not possible, nothing so far out to have a 4 year orbit could be blocking its star by 22%!

Think of how MASSIVE the thing is. 15%, 22% light blockage would the volume of a quarter-sized star, a small star in itself. Too gargantuan, like 22 Juptiers, to be alien-made I would think.

A "swarm" of megatstructures seems more likely, a big blob of a fleet that could cause a 15-22% light block.

It's a swarm of SOMETHING, that's for sure. That's never been seen in the universe before.

What could it be?? Can't be a bunch of comets or something, can't be a wandering planet -- there is no planet that big -- could it be something like a massive cluster of nomad planets?

I'd be curious to hear some more scientific speculation from experts on what it could be, if not aliens then what else is it? (again, these articles are light -- for example, was there any gravity wobble in the star detected or just light blockage? That would tell you a lot there. If the star were wobbling massively then you'd know that 22% light block is another star, and a binary system. Whatever it is, it sounds like it's anomolous to anything they've seen before.

1500 lights years, in galactic terms, is our next door neighbor.

NASA already making progress on warp theory.. these megastructures, 1500 lightyears away, could be reached some day..



Or.. if they are transiting alien ships then maybe they're here for now and will be gone.. which kepler will see in the years to come, if the structures remain in orbit or disappear.

[Sixstrings]

Did some googling, there are other explanations, but apparently they aren't perfect fits and have problems with the data on hand.

For example, could be that another star passed through this star's orbit and caused a big clump of comets to form, or it could be a massive cloud of asteroid dust or something:

The most "compelling" scenario was that another star passed through the strange star's system, causing a clump of comets, which could have caused the strange light pattern.

But, the scientists note that the majority of their scenarios "have problems explaining the data in hand," and the exocomet scenario isn't infallible.

Enter the alien theory.

...

The trio submitted a proposal that if granted would allow the group to point a massive radio dish at the star and see if it emits wavelengths consistent with coming from a technological source.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/10/15/nasa-kepler-space-telescope-life-aliens/73994556/

Well okay, I guess I have to walk it back to a skeptical view.

A 22% light blockage is so large that suggests another star, passing through, is involved. It's really not rational that even aliens would build something so big, that's just TOO big.

Can't speculate more though without actually hearing the experts talk about it, *in detail*.

And I don't see how massive alien solar panel arrays make sense.. they'd be using fusion power and such, not solar..

[Subjectivist]

Sounds more like a Dyson Cloud, millions f solar power collectors all in stellar orbits that criss cross at different altitudes creating a clumping r Bandung effect to an outside observer.

[KaiserJeep]

English-born American Physicist Freeman Dyson postulated that any sufficiently advanced civilization would eventually construct a megastructure called a "Dyson Sphere" that completely surrounds a star and captures all of the energy the star outputs. This is the basic design for the Dyson Sphere for our own Solar System:

There are many megastructures possible which are smaller than a Dyson Sphere and capture only partial energy from a star, such as a Ringworld:

It is also possible to surround a single star with multiple ringworlds, each a different diameter, which would not interfere with each other's rotation. That appears to be the best fit for the observed data. To confirm the existence of megastructures, one should look for peaks in the observed infrared energy as the star is occulted by the megastructure of the rings. All such megastructures need to radiate excess solar energy as heat.

[dissident]

More likely this is interesting "new" physics that challenges existing dogma. This is really exciting and I hope they don't bury it with the instrument error excuse.

[Cog]

A civilization capable of constructing a Dyson sphere, is one we better hope we don't have an interaction with.

[Cog]

Let us hope our existence is not something these aliens notice. I have seen how this works out in movies.

[Sixstrings]

English-born American Physicist Freeman Dyson postulated that any sufficiently advanced civilization would eventually construct a megastructure called a "Dyson Sphere" that completely surrounds a star and captures all of the energy the star outputs. ... It is also possible to surround a single star with multiple ringworlds, each a different diameter, which would not interfere with each other's rotation. That appears to be the best fit for the observed data..

Thanks kaiser for the info about dyson spheres. I never knew about those before.

My common sense brain tells me:

Such a structure is so MASSIVE -- to encompass a star -- it's hard to fathom that life could build such a thing.

but..

We already have self-replicating space robots on the horizon. Nasa is working on that very thing and planning for it in the future. Once you have sentient AI, once machines and robots can make machines and robots -- then it's all exponential from that point, and there are no limits on size.

So with that in mind, I conclude that such large structures are not implausible. Two self-replicating robots set loose in a solar system could exponentially multiply and harvest the whole system and build a dyson sphere.

Also, Kaiser --

You're one of the smartest science guys on the forum. If you have time at some point, could you explain your thoughts on why this is not natural phenomena? Why isn't it a comet field or asteroid dust, remnants of another star passing through and ripping some things up.

As cool as alien megastructures are, one should not jump to that conclusion unless the evidence truly points to it.

[GHung]

Even if advanced technological civilizations never achieve interstellar travel, they could still become 'masters' of their solar systems. Lots of resources there for a species clever enough (and humble enough) to tackle near-light-speed interplanetary travel and utilize their star's fusion generator.. There could be thousands of civilizations locked into their own solar systems, and few, if any, that attempt to go beyond.

[Lore]

Even if advanced technological civilizations never achieve interstellar travel, they could still become 'masters' of their solar systems. Lots of resources there for a species clever enough (and humble enough) to tackle near-light-speed interplanetary travel and utilize their star's fusion generator.. There could be thousands of civilizations locked into their own solar systems, and few, if any, that attempt to go beyond.

That is likely unless one of those civilizations is advanced enough to crack warp drive, but I think your closer to the mark. I also contend that advanced civilizations are rather a rare thing throughout the universe as they all must pass a threshold that we are now approaching and I suspect that very few make it beyond that point.

[KaiserJeep]

Six, I don't actually think that enough observations have been made for a solid guess, as of yet. One obvious confirmation of megastructures would be the peaks in infrared energy from the backside of a megastructure. Then various megastructures could be modelled and a best fit for the data found. What we have now is an observed radiance anomaly - a megastructure is one explanation, there may be others.

[Sixstrings]

@KJ
Ok. Smart answer. If you had to guess early, what would it be? I'm actually going with comet cluster at this point.

A swarm of objects, tightly orbiting the star.

Some more info:

Kepler Space telescope could have detected a dyson swarm or a very unlikely massive displacement of comets

KIC 8462852 is an unique source in the Kepler field. They conducted numerous observations of the star and its environment, and our analysis characterizes the object as both remarkable (e.g., the “dipping” events in the Kepler light curve) and unremarkable (ground-based data reveal no deviation from a normal F-type star) at the same time. They presented an extensive set of scenarios to explain the occurrence of the dips, most of which are unsuccessful in explaining the observations in their entirety. However, of the various considered, they find that the break-up of a exocomet provides the most compelling explanation.

The light pattern suggests there is a lot of objects circling the star, in tight formation. That would be expected if the star were young. When our solar system first formed, four and a half billion years ago, a messy disk of dust and debris surrounded the sun, before gravity organized it into planets, and rings of rock and ice. But this unusual star isn’t young. If it were young, it would be surrounded by dust that would give off extra infrared light. There doesn’t seem to be an excess of infrared light around this star.

An interesting possibility is that we are looking at an alien built Dyson Swarm of orbiting solar arrays.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/kepler-space-telescope-could-have.html

Reading around some more, it appears that the conventional wisdom explanation is that there's another star 1000 AU from this particular star. That neighboring star could have flung comets over to this star.. so it could be a comet cluster..

Otherwise, there's no evidence of any transversing stars, only the neighboring star 1000 au out.

It's not a young system, it's a mature star, so shouldn't have gas and comets and all that -- if that's what it is, they were flung in from that other star.

Just common sense though, that still seems like a lot of blockage for a "comet cluster." 15%, 22%. This thing whatever it is is like 22 times the size of jupiter.

Another issue -- why is the blockage amount varying? Shouldn't it be a constant? Did some of it decay orbit and burn up in the star?

Or, if it is artificial -- one possibility is that it's a BEACON, and is purposely flickering, meant to be obviously recognizable as artificial, like an alien civ having a reverse seti program.

They definitely need to get some radio telescopes pointed up at it and listen in.

(this thread is fun but it's probably a comet cluster, that's my early bet on it )

[Apneaman]

Only 1500 light years away?


light year
noun ASTRONOMY
a unit of astronomical distance equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year, which is 9.4607 × 1012 km (nearly 6 trillion miles).

If they somehow managed to survive their technological infancy, they might be aware of us. I saw a picture the other day of light from a galaxy from 13 billion years ago and were still in diapers. Imagine if a highly technological species had been that way for a million years? I bet they could beam us solutions but they hate Ferengies, so were on our own.

[Sixstrings]

If it is alien megastructures, then it would be a "type II" civilization that's gone from harvesting the resources on its planet to harvesting its star:

If this is true, then the civilization that built the structure would be a Type II Kadashev civilization. The Kardashev Scale is a method for measuring a civilization's technological advancement. The case has three categories: Type I, II, III. A Type I civilization is able to utilise all available resources on its home planet. A Type II civilization can harness the energy of its star, while a Type III would be able to harness the energy of the galaxy. Theoretical Physicist, Micho Kaku believes that human beings will become a Type I civilization in 100 to 200 years.
http://www.digit.in/general/kepler-space-telescope-detects-a-fault-in-a-star-27589.html

As far as doomer issues and climate change goes -- we should be pushing harder to break through to "type II" civilization.

Space development should have all the same urgency and attention as the climate change issue does, I think.

If people really do care about the continuation of our species, then they CAN'T just be all about climate change -- they have to be about branching out into the solar system, as well.

[GHung]

Ap said; "If they somehow managed to survive their technological infancy, they might be aware of us."

They would be aware of us about the time of the end of the Roman Empire (1500 years ago). Not sure we would be detectable back then. The light that Kepler is detecting was radiated ~1500 years ago.

[rdberg1957]

Unless our understanding of physical laws changes radically, it is unlikely that civilizations exist which can engage in interstellar travel. The distances are too vast to do much more than very local travel with sub-light speeds. The speed of light is a limiter and the amounts of energy required to attain velocities close to the speed of light is enormous. Some biologists believe that intelligent life is rare in the Universe because intelligence presents many obstacles to long-term success of species (war, environmental destruction on grander scale). Given our own predicaments, I'm inclined to agree with Ernest Mayr over Carl Sagan. It is very likely that there is life throughout the Universe. It is less likely that intelligent life exists within the same time period in the same vicinity. Homo sapiens sapiens has been around for at most 200,000 years which is a blink of an eye on evolutionary time scales. And our species has only been scientifically conversant in the last 200 years. I would be very surprised if our species is around for another thousand years given the self-destructiveness of the species and especially given how much our scientific knowledge has been marshaled to amplify our suicidal/homicidal tendencies. Of course, none of us will be around to know.

[Keith_McClary]

I'd like to hear more exact detail about the transits.
...
The articles posted on this are bit light on detail and explanation, but if I'm understanding it right aren't they saying they looked at the star for 4 years and then NOW these things show up? So that wouldn't be a planet. It's something that just went into orbit around that star (new alien construction, or traveling aliens). Unless it's got a 4 year orbit, but that's not possible, nothing so far out to have a 4 year orbit could be blocking its star by 22%!

The paper is on arxiv.org :
Planet Hunters X.
KIC 8462852 – Where’s the flux? ?