Massive Star " Vanishes "

As an aside, this very subject was the central theme of one of my favorite sci-fi novels of recent times. It's entitle "Pandora's Star", written by Peter F Hamilton. In the book an astronomer notices that a distant star suddenly vanishes. It's set in the distant future, so Earthlings have the capability to travel to the star to investigate the disappearance.

Very nice story if you like that type of thing; won't spoil the plot for you.

originally posted by: SleeperHasAwakened
It also may not have been a star at all, but some artificial light source (not naturally occurring) that is no longer luminous, although that seems a bit far fetched.

You got closer to anyone in the thread I think to touching on a possible scenario that it wasn't a star, though it's still very much up in the air. This paper by over 50 scientists says it could have been a star, but they think it was more likely to be a rare Type IIn supernova remnant based on the way it faded.

The Curious Case of PHL 293B: A Long-Lived Transient in a Metal-Poor Blue Compact Dwarf Galaxy

The most plausible explanations for the recent dissipation of the broad emission after an unusually persistent phase are an LBV outburst followed-by a slow, weakly variable phase or a very long-lived SN IIn event. The latter is more likely given the lack of short-timescale variability and the slowly-fading light curve.

Lots of folks talking about Dyson spheres as if they are solid spheres. They're not. They wouldn't completely block the light from the star.

As for a star possibly collapsing to a black hole without an accompanying supernova explosion, this has been theorized for years. The earliest I remember hearing about this is on that old History Channel show The Universe back in the late 2000s. One of the scientists referred to it as an "un-nova."

Apparently this star isn't the first candidate we've seen for an "un-nova."

Wikipedia article on "failed supernova"

a reply to: face23785

have you seen a dyson sphere ? how do you know that it isnt solid ?

I thought a dyson sphere was constructed to capture "all" the energy from the host star that would mean encapsulating the sun entirely would it not ?

This will be very confusing when it starts happening on a grand scale.

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: face23785

have you seen a dyson sphere ? how do you know that it isnt solid ?

I thought a dyson sphere was constructed to capture "all" the energy from the host star that would mean encapsulating the sun entirely would it not ?

Presumably you mean a hollow spherically shaped shell.

It would already take vast amounts of materials just to do the satellite option. Dyson himself thought the shell to be mechanically impossible:

In response to letters prompted by some papers, Dyson replied, "A solid shell or ring surrounding a star is mechanically impossible. The form of 'biosphere' which I envisaged consists of a loose collection or swarm of objects traveling on independent orbits around the star."

Personally, I haven't confirmed the mechanical impossibility of a spherical shell, but it certainly seems to make much more sense to do what Dyson actually suggested, "a loose collection or swarm of objects traveling on independent orbits around the star." Not only would that take much less material than a spherical shell (not a small issue since by one estimate, it would take more material than exists in several planet Earths to make a spherical shell), but it solves some problems with the shell, like, how would you keep the star centered in the shell? With orbiting satellites, the orbits take care of that for you, but a spherical shell surrounding the star could not really be in orbit.

If it was pulled into a Black Hole, Could we observe it's materials being ripped away as it is dragged towards the hole? But to just vanish sounds strange.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

The Sun's gravity would make a Dyson Sphere next to impossible, It would more than likely pull any object into the Sun.

originally posted by: 11SK1180
a reply to: Arbitrageur

The Sun's gravity would make a Dyson Sphere next to impossible, It would more than likely pull any object into the Sun.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, are you taking about Dyson's idea of orbiting objects? The earth is in orbit around the sun, and it's not getting pulled into the sun, on the contrary, the Earth's orbit gets a tiny bit larger every year. We've already put satellites in orbit around the sun and they aren't getting pulled in, like these three for example:



The idea with a Dyson sphere would be to put more satellites in orbit for the purpose of collecting energy. Those are just for observation.

To keep the satellite from falling into the sun it needs to be going fast enough in orbit, and to keep it from flying away from the sun the speed can't be too fast, so the trick is to give the satellite the "Goldilocks" speed that's just right to keep it in stable orbit.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

aye thanks for clarifying that , so the orbiting satellites wouldnt completely block out all of the light from the sun , but would harness a large amount of it

I envisioned it like a ring of or network of satellites in a spherical arrangement where each orbiting satellite forms like a sphere grid around the sun then some sort of advanced energy capturing field formed between the network of satellites which captures the suns energy

but I think dyson sphere would be dangerous because if you capture all of the suns energy then you wont be able to grow plants on any planets in that system , so Id assume that its a very late stage energy capture for stars nearing the end of their life

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: face23785

have you seen a dyson sphere ? how do you know that it isnt solid ?

I thought a dyson sphere was constructed to capture "all" the energy from the host star that would mean encapsulating the sun entirely would it not ?

That's the common misconception about them. See here. Dyson himself said a completely solid sphere would be impossible to construct. There are a number of inherent physical problems beyond the obvious engineering challenges.

originally posted by: 11SK1180
If it was pulled into a Black Hole, Could we observe it's materials being ripped away as it is dragged towards the hole? But to just vanish sounds strange.

We see this phenomenon all the time with binary star systems. While the collapsed star/black hole/neutron star from the pair might not be viewable in /visible/ light spectra, you'd see all type of other high energy emissions, x-rays, etc. as the mass from the star being eaten forms an accretion disk around the massive object. The matter spinning about the consuming star would spin up to extremely high velocities as it's about it fall into the event horizon. I don't think that's something that could occur without observing any trace of the 'consuming' partner eating mass from its counterpart.

a reply to: alldaylong

Another explanation is that an advanced civilation moved the star to it's habitable zone. I started a thread on this awhile ago.

It's in the Space Exploration forum and it's called:

Missing stars could point to alien civilizations, scientists say

www.abovetopsecret.com...

It's based on an article where Researchers found a 100 missing stars and there was an older paper that said an advanced civilation may move stars to their habitable zone to avoid expansion of the universe and if so we should find missing stars. It was called:

Life Versus Dark Energy: How An Advanced Civilization Could Resist the Accelerating Expansion of the Universe

The presence of dark energy in our universe is causing space to expand at an accelerating rate. As a result, over the next approximately 100 billion years, all stars residing beyond the Local Group will fall beyond the cosmic horizon and become not only unobservable, but entirely inaccessible, thus limiting how much energy could one day be extracted from them. Here, we consider the likely response of a highly advanced civilization to this situation. In particular, we argue that in order to maximize its access to useable energy, a sufficiently advanced civilization would chose to expand rapidly outward, build Dyson Spheres or similar structures around encountered stars, and use the energy that is harnessed to accelerate those stars away from the approaching horizon and toward the center of the civilization. We find that such efforts will be most effective for stars with masses in the range of M∼(0.2−1)M⊙, and could lead to the harvesting of stars within a region extending out to several tens of Mpc in radius, potentially increasing the total amount of energy that is available to a future civilization by a factor of several thousand. We also discuss the observable signatures of a civilization elsewhere in the universe that is currently in this state of stellar harvesting.

arxiv.org...

If an advanced civilazion had the technology to harvest stars and move them into their habitable zone to avoid the effects of expansion, they could essentially be immortal. Those civilaztions might be selfish though and monitor less advanced civilizations to stop them from reaching the point where they can harvest stars. There could be battles over star harvesting like we battle over oil.

Here's the article where the Researchers discovered 100 missing stars.

www.cnet.com...

Astronomers compare old views of the sky with what we see today and find that at least 100 stars appear to have vanished, or were perhaps covered up.

a reply to: neoholographic

Then why are new stars not popping up with the same characteristics and signatures?

Why are moving the stars not causing noticeable effects from moving large gravity wells?

a reply to: alldaylong

how strange...

you would think as the star dies it would have to shed its outer layers and if its a black hole we will know in the coming years because if there is a black hole or neutron star we will see radiation from gas/dust falling into a black hole and the neutron star will have its own signatures

than again this could be the first signs of a galactic or at least some advanced civilization messing with stars by building Dyson spheres or some other engine that needs a star to power it.


very interesting over all

originally posted by: neutronflux
a reply to: neoholographic

Then why are new stars not popping up with the same characteristics and signatures?

Why are moving the stars not causing noticeable effects from moving large gravity wells?

First off, they just found the 100 missing stars. The Researchers said they're now going to look for more missing stars and I'm sure they will go over maps of space looking for places where there were no stars in the past but now stars are there. You have to give them time to look through the data. Space is pretty vast if you didn't know.

Secondly, the question why are... when talking about an advanced civilization that would have the technology and scientific understanding to harvest stars, is only useful as an excersize to try an advance our understang.

We can't say what type of signatures their technology should or should'nt leave. We can speculate but what if they have an understanding of dark matter and energy the same way we understand visible matter?

They can have civilizations powered by dark energy and made of dark matter that would defy our understanding of the laws of physics. They could harvest stars as simple as a Farmer harvest corn.

a reply to: neoholographic

You

First off, they just found the 100 missing stars.

They now know where the stars are?

Or they just cataloged the stars that are now not at their last recorded positions?

From what kind of records?

The image that kicked this survey off was captured on March 16, 1950 at the US Naval Observatory. The star cluster in question (seen above) is in the constellation Lupus.

www.extremetech.com...

While it’s fascinating to speculate about aliens walling off stars with Dyson spheres, that’s probably not what’s happening. The study is currently only available on the arXiv preprint server. That means it has not undergone a rigorous peer review.

If we assume the updated observations used in the study are accurate, there may still be non-alien explanations for the missing stars. The earlier images could have captured something in the foreground like a satellite or comet that looked like a star. There may also be something obscuring our view today that doesn’t appear in the visible spectrum. There could even be some natural process of which we are unaware that causes stars to vanish.

www.extremetech.com...

I asked ....

Then why are new stars not popping up with the same characteristics and signatures?

Why are moving the stars not causing noticeable effects from moving large gravity wells?

...... If you care to address my actual post.

a reply to: neutronflux

What?

The first part of your post is all muddled. What are you saying? The first star wasn't found missing in 1950. It was just found in 2016. So I don't understand what you're talking about.

Secondly, the article said:

There could even be some natural process of which we are unaware that causes stars to vanish.

This is just an asinine statement.

Of course there could be some natural process but we're not aware of any. That's just being Captain Obvious. Does that mean we shouldn't explore an extraterrestrial explanation while we wait around for someone to come up with a natural explanation that really doesn't explain anything?

Why are you so hostile at any mention of extraterrestrials? I said:

Another explanation is that an advanced civilation moved the star to it's habitable zone. I started a thread on this awhile ago.

ANOTHER EXPLANATION!

I didn't say this was the answer but it's "another explanation" for missing stars that needs to be looked at and I'm glad open minded Researchers are looking at it and not just sticking their heads in the sand and saying we can't even look at this because there might be some natural explanation that we're unaware of.

You said:

Then why are new stars not popping up with the same characteristics and signatures?

Maybe they are and we will find out when the Researchers update their findings.

Why are moving the stars not causing noticeable effects from moving large gravity wells?

Another ridiculous question that was asked and answered.

First, they are studying these areas.

We don't know the science and technology used to harvest stars and maybe it's beyond our comprehension at this time. Also, you have to give the Researchers time to look at these things. They just found these missing stars. They're doing more research and research takes time.

It took 40 years to find the Higgs Boson.

I'm trying to figure out what's your point and why are you so hostile at the mere suggestion of an extraterrestrial explanation? Do you think Researchers should even ask these questions and do the research?

You're trying to refute the evidence before Researchers gather and look at all of the evidence. It's like you're triggered by the mere suggestion that an extrateresrtial explanation needs to be looked at. Get over it. They're Researchers asking questions and surprise, doing research.

a reply to: neoholographic

You

The first part of your post is all muddled.

I was referring to you posting, “ First off, they just found the 100 missing stars.”

The sentence reads to me they now know where the stars in question are located. As in they are no longer missing.

But I assume when you posted, “ First off, they just found the 100 missing stars” this is what you really was trying to say. They just cataloged the stars that are now not at their last recorded positions.

As in stars recored In past surveys are not in their last known locations.

You

The first star wasn't found missing in 1950.

That is not what the article was saying.

A star, or what was thought to be a star, that was surveyed in 1950 was not visible in 2016.

Astronomers are currently wrestling with something of a mystery. In 2016, a team of researchers in Sweden noticed that a star visible in an image from 1950 was no longer visible.

www.extremetech.com...

You

It was just found in 2016

A “star” was found in 1950 through a method that is susceptible to errors is not visible after 60 plus years? And your first though is aliens? With modern surveys that are also susceptible to error.


I guess ever time earth’s sun disappears behind a cloud you think aliens towed it off?

The article again.....

If we assume the updated observations used in the study are accurate, there may still be non-alien explanations for the missing stars. The earlier images could have captured something in the foreground like a satellite or comet that looked like a star. There may also be something obscuring our view today that doesn’t appear in the visible spectrum. There could even be some natural process of which we are unaware that causes stars to vanish.

This is something that warrants further investigation, of course, but it’s probably not aliens.

www.extremetech.com...

You

This is just an asinine statement.

Yeah. There was a time a few were convinced pulsar stars had to be “aliens”.

Pulsars: How The First 'False Alien' Signal Opened Up A New World In Astronomy

There was no natural mechanism in existence that would have explained it at that time, so turning to aliens was logical, if ultimately incorrect.

www.forbes.com...

You again.

Maybe there are and we will find out when the Researchers update their findings.

So. The answer is no. Got it.

Me:
Why are moving the stars not causing noticeable effects from moving large gravity wells?

You

Another ridiculous question that was asked and answered.

Either moving a star, or changing a star’s mass is going to effect how stars in a “local neighborhood” are positioned or move through space.

Earth's wild ride: Our voyage through the Milky Way

Read more: www.newscientist.com...

www.newscientist.com...

Roskar’s simulations show that a lucky star can ride the wave for 10,000 light years or more. Our sun may be such a surfer. Some measurements imply the sun is richer in heavy elements than the average star in our neighbourhood, suggesting it was born in the busy central zone of the galaxy, where stellar winds and exploding stars enrich the cosmic brew more than in the galactic suburbs. The gravitational buffeting the solar system received then might also explain why Sedna, a large iceball in the extremities of the solar system, travels on a puzzling, enormously elongated orbit (arxiv.org/abs/1108.1570).
This is mere circumstantial evidence. But we might find more direct traces of disturbing incidents from the distant past…


Read more: www.newscientist.com...

Bottom line. Too early to claim aliens.

a reply to: neutronflux

Your post doesn't make any sense. You said:

Bottom line. Too early to claim aliens.

Based on what?

Who cares about your personal opinion. If the Researches have a plausible theory and there's people who are willing to fund it, then you can't make such a claim. In the last post you posted an article that said:

There could even be some natural process of which we are unaware that causes stars to vanish.

At the end of the day, you seem to be saying don't even ask the question or do the research. Why are you so afraid of people doing research to see if missing stars could be connected to extraterrestrials?

You posted from the article like it's fact. It's all speculation:

If we assume the updated observations used in the study are accurate, there may still be non-alien explanations for the missing stars. The earlier images could have captured something in the foreground like a satellite or comet that looked like a star. There may also be something obscuring our view today that doesn’t appear in the visible spectrum. There could even be some natural process of which we are unaware that causes stars to vanish.

www.extremetech.com...

First, this is just one writers opinion and you're posting it like it's more than just one writer's opinion.

Who said there couldn't be a non alien explanation?

You seem to be so afraid of the mere suggestion of extraterrestrials, that you make these ridiculous statements. You're acting as if I said the only explanation is extraterrestrials. I said it's another explanation and I'm glad Researchers are looking into it.

You said:

I was referring to you posting, “ First off, they just found the 100 missing stars.” The sentence reads to me they now know where the stars in question are located. As in they are no longer missing.

What???

It reads to you? What are you a mind reader? There's nothing in my post to imply that these missing stars are located. Just strange!

Again I ask:

Why are you afraid of Researchers doing research into missing stars and asking is there an explanation that involves an advanced civilization?

You seem to be upset if the question is simply asked. Who cares what you think? Why should Researchers ask questions and do research based on your opinion?

If I said, the only explanation for missing stars is star harvesting by an advanced civilization, your post might make some sense. I said ANOTHER EXPLANATION in addition to the explanations already put forth in the thread so your post doesn't make any sense.