NASA may have solved the mystery of the Dyson Sphere, star KIC 8462852

a reply to: Ross 54
Excellent find!
That example is a bit smaller than I had in mind yet could we prove any appreciable dimming from this?
There are many who still make the claim that comets are dirty snowballs originating from the outer solar system in the face of direct evidence collected over the last 3+ decades to the contrary. Comets show an inner solar system origin and we’re still trying to find the water. A true definition appears to be the opposite of the old theory.

About all that can be seen of it is a slight apparent brightening of the Sun's surface due to the glowing gasses in the comet.
If a comet can be expected to produce enough brightness to more than outweigh any dimming due to its dust

Comets have been observed to emit X-rays yet I don’t know if one has ever been seen to produce its own light. At any rate, a 22% decrease in apparent brightness is much larger than I would expect yet remember there is much we don't know about natural phenomena in our own solar system and not just comets.

Since the comet's gas tail was large enough to show up against the face of the Sun, it's dust tail might be expected to be similarly conspicuously, albeit dark. That's assuming a comet's dust tail is ever substantial enough to cause appreciable dimming of it's star. I doubted this before, but ever more so now.

A Comet's gasses are ionized (electrically charged) when it's near the Sun. This causes them to glow. It's rather like the glow of gasses in auroras, which are also energized by the Sun.

a reply to: Devino

And there is also much we don't know about extraterrestrial megastructures in our universe. Weird comet hijinks are equally unprecedented.

I really don't see why the "mundane" explanation should immediately carry more weight.

originally posted by: Ross 54
A Comet's gasses are ionized (electrically charged) when it's near the Sun. This causes them to glow.

Yes, that’s correct. I think my mistake was the byproduct of the old dirty snowball theory. *Sigh, I feel like a victim now.

originally posted by: Eilasvaleleyn
a reply to: Devino

And there is also much we don't know about extraterrestrial megastructures in our universe.

That’s probably because we have never seen one before. Anything we might claim to “know” comes from science fiction.

I really don't see why the "mundane" explanation should immediately carry more weight.

I think this is because it’s something we have seen before. We know it does happen yet maybe not to this scale. This is also a good scientific approach in my opinion. Compare odd results with what we know before fictitious speculation.

What in the Universe has our Shadow Govt got themselves into up there? Hope it's worth trillions of dollars! And for the good of mankind. Cough cough. Anyway it's fun to speculate on these things. At this point, I find it really interesting that this had never been witnessed before and it doesn't look like we will get our answer anytime soon.
The possibilities are greater than we can imagine, deep space has taught us that much. Unless you buy the domed Earth thing. Strange world indeed!

That's a boat load of comets to dim a star like that.

We have an oort cloud, don't we?

Does every system have one? But these guys probably thought of that already.

Well it could be a number of brown dwarfs around it, but wouldn't they show up on IR?