Intriguing New Development on Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852)

a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn

I don't like applying Occam's Razor to situations such as this.

Neither do I. Though of a sceptical temperament myself, I find myself disagreeing with those reaching for a ‘natural’ explanation in this case — their alternatives are about as far-fetched as the alien hypothesis, if not more so. That’s exactly what I meant by saying ‘Occam’s razor cuts both ways’.

I cannot help but wonder, how would the world react if the official announcement was "We have discovered an alien megastructure 1500 light years from Earth."

Official? From which office would such an announcement originate? That of the Secretary-General of the United Nations? The President of the United States? The Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church? The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem? The secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science?

Whichever office it emanated from, such an announcement would certainly cause a great deal of excitement over the short term — ALIENS FOUND headlines in the tabloids and so forth — but its long-term effects would probably be negligible. Aliens 1,500LY away will almost certainly never reach us, nor us them.

a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn

I believe it would be reasonable to say, that until we have actually sent a manned mission to the region to examine the situation, that we will be unable to say with any certainty what, exactly, is going on at Tabby's Star.

More effort and money needs to go into propulsion advancement. If even a quarter of the energy which gets put into scanning the sky from a distance, were ploughed into bringing us the stars, then we might get some answers worth having. As impressive as our astronomy is, there will never be a replacement for going and having a look for ourselves, with our own two eyes.

The Borg

Whatever it is, it's something fascinating and tantalizing and not easily understood in short order... which makes it exciting!

If it's extraterrestrial life, that's exciting for obvious reasons. But if it's a natural phenomenon or dynamic that is completely unprecedented or, even better, previously never even conceived of like pulsars once were, then that's almost just as exciting as it being aliens imo.

The mystery is riveting and I'm glad it's ongoing and being looked at regardless of what it turns out to be. I do agree with others that, "We didn't detect anything so it's nothing," isn't a rigorous conclusion though. (Without some missing context, nuance, and caveats not being included in the articles, which is always possible... anyone more aware of the finer points care to elaborate if indeed it's time to simply say for certain this is definitely a natural or mundane phenomenon?) I do think it's probably natural. But there's a big difference between probably and is.

It seems, and I could be wrong of course, more like a "We simply don't know without more data" situation more than anything. Which is in itself exciting.

Peace.

a reply to: Astyanax

Neither do I. Though of a sceptical temperament myself, I find myself disagreeing with those reaching for a ‘natural’ explanation in this case — their alternatives are about as far-fetched as the alien hypothesis, if not more so. That’s exactly what I meant by saying ‘Occam’s razor cuts both ways’.

Ah, yes, then in that case I agree. I feel that the "aliens" hypothesis is often times treated with instant irreverence. While somewhat understandable when dealing with terrestrial matters (UFOs), when discussing a star 1500 light years away, it really is no less likely than any other explanation.

Official? From which office would such an announcement originate? That of the Secretary-General of the United Nations? The President of the United States? The Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church? The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem? The secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science?

Whichever office it emanated from, such an announcement would certainly cause a great deal of excitement over the short term — ALIENS FOUND headlines in the tabloids and so forth — but its long-term effects would probably be negligible. Aliens 1,500LY away will almost certainly never reach us, nor us them.

Fair point, and indeed as TB points out, it is essentially impossible to really confirm what is going on at KIC 8462852 regardless. Perhaps an official announcement would not come at all. It may show up in the back of some science magazine, "Alien Megastructure Currently Most Likely Explanation" it would be titled.

Do you think there is any potential it would spur a drive to come together as a species?
What effect on religion may it have?

a reply to: TrueBrit

I believe it would be reasonable to say, that until we have actually sent a manned mission to the region to examine the situation, that we will be unable to say with any certainty what, exactly, is going on at Tabby's Star.

Yes, that is a fair point. And also, somewhat of a sad one. Travelling to a star 1500 light years away is an almost impossible venture within any reasonable time frame. However, any sci-fi-esque developments that may occur from attempting such an endeavor (time travel, warp drives, gravity manipulation) would be worth it even if making it to the star itself remained beyond our grasp.

More effort and money needs to go into propulsion advancement. If even a quarter of the energy which gets put into scanning the sky from a distance, were ploughed into bringing us the stars, then we might get some answers worth having. As impressive as our astronomy is, there will never be a replacement for going and having a look for ourselves, with our own two eyes.

And if only a quarter of the energy that goes into hatred and war was put into peaceful scientific endeavors and improvement of humanity as a species, where may we be? Make no mistake, I am someone who believes that a Utopian society is not only possible, but attainable with our current level of technology. The only roadblock is, of course, people. Space travel as you say, medicine, chemistry, VR technology, how wonderful we could be if only we tried.

But I look at our race as a whole, and I cannot help but wonder: Do I really want humanity as it stands among the stars?
I would much rather we did not become a blight upon the universe.

originally posted by: Ross 54
The smashing of planets in the Tabby's Star system would create a great deal of dust. They've repeatedly looked for such dust, with instruments sensitive enough to detect its infra-red signature. No such dust has been found.

Thinking out loud...if those hypothetical smashed planets were destroyed millions of years ago, most of the expected dust and relatively small particles would probably have ultimately been drawn into the star long ago, with a percentage of the larger pieces of the planet(s) being herded into a more stable Solar orbit, becoming more like planetoids or wandering moons around the host star.

The lack of dust showing up, doesn't mean the 'smashed planet' hypothesis didn't happen and isn't the cause of the star's dimming...it could just be that it happened aeons ago and the dust is mostly now gone.

a reply to: Ross 54

If it can be assumed that a big bunch of comets (sorry, for that scientific term) can block the view of that sun, then we should also take another view (pun intended) on that view (this one too).

Imagine a ship coming our way from that sun. Its mass blots out the light from its sun behind it. So we have one body doing what it was assumed to take hundreds of thousands of bodies randomly doing.

As for the gradual dimming over the decades, as the ship approaches toward us, its apparent diameter grows to block more and more of the distant sun. Eventually, much like the scene in the movie Independence Day, the ship will block all of the light from its origin and even that of our own sun if it comes between us and Sol. So this is a far more elegant hypothesis than the former. ...Not saying that it is correct, you understand, just a joke on scientific "thought."

originally posted by: nocando

originally posted by: Ross 54

originally posted by: eriktheawful

What would be telling is that amount of dimming increasing over time. It could mean something being built that is covering up more and more of the star's light.



That would be really suggestive.

A gradual dimming of this star, over time, is what the chart in the linked paper seems to show. 16 of 18 data points lie along a steadily declining track of brightness, from 1890 to 1989. And , yes, I agree, this is highly suggestive.

Would it be possible that a huge fleet of ships is approaching our solar system.

This would cause an ever increasing shadow on our system explaining the trend?

Good thought but, I believe navigation through a three dimentional void such as space would dictate a ship follow a large arc rather than a straight line. Because the trip could not very well be instantanious, you will have to "aim" toward where the target planet will be when you arrive. Much like leading a duck when hunting, or it will have moved on much farther than where it had been when you started your trip.
Actuall, this could be the main deterrent in navigation during space travel. Everything is moving within the same three dimentional space and not always at the same velocities.

Admirethedistance asked " Couldn't the star's apparent dimming be due to transient clouds of interstellar dust and gas? Seems more likely than "alien megastructure"

whatever is causing the dimming is revolving around the star because the fluctuations repeat. I wonder if we could eventually get a more detailed idea of the shape?

the object is going around the star because the fluctuations in the dimming pattern repeat.

a reply to: Aliensun

originally posted by: MysterX

originally posted by: Ross 54
The smashing of planets in the Tabby's Star system would create a great deal of dust. They've repeatedly looked for such dust, with instruments sensitive enough to detect its infra-red signature. No such dust has been found.

Thinking out loud...if those hypothetical smashed planets were destroyed millions of years ago, most of the expected dust and relatively small particles would probably have ultimately been drawn into the star long ago, with a percentage of the larger pieces of the planet(s) being herded into a more stable Solar orbit, becoming more like planetoids or wandering moons around the host star.

The lack of dust showing up, doesn't mean the 'smashed planet' hypothesis didn't happen and isn't the cause of the star's dimming...it could just be that it happened aeons ago and the dust is mostly now gone.

The asteroid belt has apparently existed since the very early days of our solar system, billions of years ago. While the large asteroids are the most conspicuous, there is also a great deal of dust present. It has not been drawn into the Sun. Most of the matter in the asteroid belt, including most of the dust, is in stable orbits, and is likely to remain where it is indefinitely.
I haven't found any indication in the scientific papers about Tabby's Star dimming, that the situation with orbiting debris is expected to be different there.

originally posted by: bottleslingguy
Admirethedistance asked " Couldn't the star's apparent dimming be due to transient clouds of interstellar dust and gas? Seems more likely than "alien megastructure"

whatever is causing the dimming is revolving around the star because the fluctuations repeat. I wonder if we could eventually get a more detailed idea of the shape?

When they want to determine the brightness of a star, they also take note of other stars, called 'check stars' which appear very near the star they are examining. If the target star varies in brightness, but the 'check stars' don't, they have a reasonable idea that the dimming really has to do with the star of interest, rather than something else , like clouds of interstellar dust and gas that pass between the stars and the observer. They used this technique with Tabby's star, and were convinced that the dimming has to do with this star itself.

The astronomers found that the short term dimming of Tabby's Star has no obvious pattern of regular repetition. The Kepler Space Telescope, which found the dimming of Tabby's Star in the first place, was looking for exo-planets around this star. These would have been revealed by a regularly repeating patterns of dimming. No such dimming, and so no planets, were found.

a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn

Do you think there is any potential it would spur a drive to come together as a species?

No.

What effect on religion may it have?

It may spawn a minor, short-lived Californian cult.

Why not a small black hole in orbit? Could account for long term dimming and orbital wink.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn

I believe it would be reasonable to say, that until we have actually sent a manned mission to the region to examine the situation, that we will be unable to say with any certainty what, exactly, is going on at Tabby's Star.

More effort and money needs to go into propulsion advancement. If even a quarter of the energy which gets put into scanning the sky from a distance, were ploughed into bringing us the stars, then we might get some answers worth having. As impressive as our astronomy is, there will never be a replacement for going and having a look for ourselves, with our own two eyes.

Agree!

originally posted by: Xeven
Why not a small black hole in orbit? Could account for long term dimming and orbital wink.

If a black hole, plus its accretion disk of debris, were large enough to dim the star to the degree observed, it would produce conspicuous x-rays, from outside the area from which no radiation can escape. Tabby's Star was covered by an astronomical x-ray survey of the sky. No x-rays were found there.

a reply to: Ross 54

Thanks for that. Going by our own single Solar system as an example of what to expect in other Systems is probably not ultimately going to be a fruitful thing to do...it's all we have for the time being of course, but what we expect remote bodies to do, and how they will behave based on prior findings in our locale, isn't always going to be accurate, sometimes even completely wrong.

Playing devils advocate, the asteroid belt(s) in our system, are the product of their unique creation and position...not all systems will share the same conditions, gravity, orbital peculiarities, foreign bodies mixing things up and any number of happenings and conditions that could result in very different behaviour in one system compared to our own.

NOT to say what you say could not be so...just that it doesn't have to be so because it is what we see here in the Sol system. Who's to say the impacts that caused our asteriod belt(s) were not at one time amazingly massive, and what we see now as asteriod belts, is a feeble remnant of the amoount of material that once blanketed the entire Sol System.

It's possible that most of the material that resulted from a hypothetical gigantic planetary collision hundreds of millions / billions of years ago either formed one or more planets (most logically Mars and / or Earth), added to the mass of existing planets and moons, as well as a large % of the debris being vacuumed into the Sun.

We just don't know.

Astronomers have been watching Tabby's star, and have said that when, or if, it shows another dip in brightness, they will examine it with the spectroscope. They hope to determine if whatever is dimming it is dust, or something larger.

Dr. Schaefer's recent findings have shown that the star has been dimmed gradually and substantially over the century 1890 to 1989. A current magnitude value for the star, indicates that this trend has continued over the years since then.
So, Tabby's Star, it appears, is continuously dimmed. Given that, it seems reasonable that the spectral searches for dust that have already been done, and which found none, can be taken as showing that larger objects are instead responsible for the odd behavior of Tabby's Star.
Dr. Schaefer's work has also show that the number of comets necessary to maintain a century of dimming is implausibly large. Disrupted planet fragments may seem a tempting alternative, but given the degree of dimming, as great as 15 to 22 percent of the star's light, the objects responsible would have to be around 550,000 to 700,000 miles in diameter.
Natural objects of this size are stars, not planets. They would presumably shine conspicuously, as stars. No such stars have been seen near KIC 8462852. The search for additional stars in this system was sensitive enough to turn up a distant red dwarf companion star.

Maybe a supernova? I dunno, i also agree it's mostly likely not aliens. I think this is an enterely new think on astrophysics, maybe in the future we will know what's going on there.

What effect on religion may it have?

If it were somehow confirmed for sure to be real intelligent alien life more advanced than man, that would at least put a very large nail in the coffin for the abrahamic faiths which basically put man as the center of creation. That would basically prove such religions are false, manmade fabrications.