Sentences with phrase «alien megastructure»
An oddly dimming star located 1,500 light - years from Earth is causing all sorts of commotion in the scientific community, leading some to speculate that it may be some sort of alien megastructure.
gizmodo.com
«This latest research rules out alien megastructures, but it raises the plausibility of other phenomena being behind the dimming,» Wright said.
In a subsequent paper submitted to The Astrophysical Journal, Jason Wright and colleagues at Penn State University speculated about other causes, including alien megastructures built to harvest energy while orbiting the star.
Even alien megastructures must obey fundamental physics, so any energy from starlight they intercept must ultimately be radiated away as heat.
Other scientists have jumped in on the task of explaining these dips with suggestions ranging from weird internal variations with the WTF star itself to unfinished alien megastructures.
You may know it as Tabby's Star, or the «Alien Megastructure Star.»
The star exhibits weird fluctuations in its brightness, leading a few astronomers to propose — among many other ideas — that maybe a swarm of alien megastructures is orbiting around the object.
Breathless news stories were calling KIC 8462852 the «alien megastructure» star.
If a large, opaque object — say, an alien megastructure — was blocking the star, then multiple telescopes should see the same level of dimming across many wavelengths of light.
If an alien megastructure indeed encircles a star known as KIC 8462852, it's 1,500 years old and no one may be home anymore.
Tabby's star is probably just dusty, and still not an alien megastructure.
And before you ask: No, the observations will not be able to prove that we are looking at an alien megastructure.
Alien megastructures are out.
«That almost absolutely ruled out the alien megastructure scenario, unless it's an alien microstructure,» Meng says.
And when astronomers discovered a star in 2015 whose light seems to occasionally get blocked by something big, one researcher proposed it was an alien megastructure.
Speculation to account for KIC 8462852's dips in brightness has ranged from it having swallowed a nearby planet to an unusually large group of comets orbiting the star to an alien megastructure.
What if astronomers were to find strong evidence that KIC 8462852 is indeed enveloped by an alien megastructure?
An artist's illustration of an alien megastructure around KIC 8462852.
It could be time to ditch the alien megastructure.
The alien megastructure hypothesis would have to be considered seriously if all natural hypotheses are ruled out.
Having examined a host of natural explanations for the odd behavior of Boyajian's star and found them lacking, we can now consider the most sensational possibility — an alien megastructure, akin to what Dyson described more than half a century ago.
Or was it alien megastructures built to harvest the star's energy?
«Tabby's Star: Alien megastructure not the cause of dimming of the «most mysterious star in the universe».»
Therefore, whatever is passing between us and the star is not opaque, as would be expected from a planet or alien megastructure,» Boyajian said.
Several theories abound to explain the star's unusual light patterns, including that an alien megastructure is orbiting the star.
Discovered in archival data from NASA's Kepler space telescope in 2015 by the Louisiana State University astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, the extreme episodic dimming of «Tabby's Star,» or «Boyajian's Star,» inspired speculations it was being engulfed by starlight - absorbing «alien megastructures» (think: a solar power plant the size of a solar system).
Most famously, some astronomers have said that the dimming could be caused by an orbiting alien megastructure.
, such data by itself would not lead us to immediately conclude that the «alien megastructure» hypothesis is correct.
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.
Astronomers are still trying to figure out the nature of the brightness changes, which has been attributed to anything from comets to an uneven ring of dust to the less likely explanation that it is an alien megastructure.
A more headline - grabbing proposal was that the dips were the result of an «alien megastructure.»
Jason Wright, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University, who initially proposed the possibility of an alien megastructure, tweeted: «@tsboyajian's star is dipping.
An alien megastructure could not be the reason behind the mysterious dimming of Tabby's Star.
«The hypothesis of an alien megastructure around KIC 8462852 is rapidly crumbling apart,» study author Douglas Vakoch, President of SETI International, said in a statement.
For the last two years, the star's bizarre behavior has confounded astronomers, who have invoked several ideas — a hypothesis involving a gigantic «alien megastructure» being proffered only half in jest — in their attempt at an explanation.
-LSB-...] what that is, and theories have ranged from a huge mass of comets to alien megastructures.
Though KIC 8462852, also known as Tabby's star, is probably not host to an alien megastructure like a Dyson Sphere or an orbiting...
This flies in the face of the «alien megastructure» idea and the other more exotic speculations.
«This pretty much rules out the alien megastructure theory, as that could not explain the wavelength - dependent dimming,» said Huan Meng, at the University of Arizona, Tucson, who is lead author of the new study published in The Astrophysical Journal.
The science world is all in a tizzy this week about the supposed discovery of an alien megastructure.
As with the «alien megastructure» interpretation, the current set of data doesn't allow for any definitive answer on the mystery of KIC 8462852's strange brightness variations, underscoring the need for more detailed follow - up observations.
Even before the possible (but not suuuuper likely) «alien megastructure» candidate known as Boyajian's Star or Tabby's Star, there were several searches for similar megastructures.
«Astronomers believe bizarre light patterns from a star millions of miles away to be alien megastructures» offered one article, and another claimed: «Astronomers think they have found an alien megastructure.»
Scientists still don't know if it is an alien megastructure, an asteroid, or something else entirely.
Read: «Alien Megastructure» Star Update: New Study Says KIC 8462852's Bizarre Behavior Is Being Caused By A Planet - Star Collision
Scientists have since shrugged off the idea the dimming is caused by an «alien megastructure».