'Alien Megastructure' Star Only Gets More Mysterious

Popular Science ^ | May 10, 2016 | Sarah Fecht

[piasa]

A really, really large fluttering space moth that can’t resist circling bright objects.....

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.

• New study supports natural causes, not alien activity, explain mystery star's behavior [05/09/2016 8:56:03 PM PDT]
• Dimming star remains mystery, but it's likely not caused by comets [01/16/2016 5:52:31 PM PST]
• 'Alien Megastructure' Mystery May Soon Be Solved [10/28/2015 12:56:27 PM PDT]
• Did Astronomers Find Evidence of an Alien Civilization? Probably Not. But Still Cool. [10/15/2015 8:55:50 PM PDT]
• The strange star that has serious scientists talking about an alien megastructure [10/15/2015 12:04:31 PM PDT]
• SETI Institute undertakes search for alien signal from Kepler Star KIC 8462852 [10/24/2015 5:31:16 AM PDT]

[ctdonath2]

Source?

[SunkenCiv]

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[LibWhacker]

I’ve read they’ve ruled out natural causes that could interfere with the star’s output, but how did they manage that? For instance, what if the star were 30% or 40% iron from the get go (don’t ask me how)? That would surely wreck havoc on the nuclear fires at the core, perhaps causing wild fluctuations in the output. And that’s only one possibility, I imagine. How could they rule out all such possibilities when we admittedly know so little about the wonders that are out there? To invoke aliens at this point is nutso, imo.

[Toddsterpatriot]

The Pak Protectors are building something good.

[Ransomed]

If you are the point you can build a dyson sphere, you are probably also at the point where you can disguise a dyson sphere. So I doubt is something like Pak Protectors, unless they know for sure nothing is out there that could ever be a threat. Which isn’t too comforting considering we can supposedly see this thing.

Freegards

[babygene]

“Once a planet gets past a certain mass, gravity will cause the matter to compress until nuclear reactions start and it becomes a star.”

Wouldn’t that depend on what elements are present on the planet?

[RinaseaofDs]

Bkmk. Thank you!

[editor-surveyor]

.
That is like a litter of mice “capturing” the big black cat that is stalking them. They could capture his stomach.

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure.

[UCANSEE2]

Thanks for the links. It seems to me the answer to this mystery is that there isn’t just one answer.

Quote from first article linked:

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“Boyajian and her colleagues considered a number of possible explanations, including variations in the star’s output, the aftermath of an Earth/Moon type planetary collision, interstellar clumps of dust passing between the star and earth, and some kind of disruption by the star’s apparent dwarf companion. However, none of their scenarios could explain all of the observations. “

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That star could have a combination of any or all of the above scenarios, which would explain the varied dimming and the inconsistent timing.

[UCANSEE2]

The start has a very large planet orbiting it. Simple answer. Very, very big.

If you read up on the observances, they are not evenly timed and the dimming varies. I don't think there is a simple answer because the whole point of the articles on this star are that the dimming effect is irregular and complicated.

[jrestrepo]

Like my wife!

[Windflier]

“My bet that it’s a binary star system with one of the stars being a captured black hole.”

You beat me to it. That was also my conclusion. What else could reduce the visible light output from a star by 20%?

The only thing I’d add, is that it would have to be a very small black hole, or an extremely massive star.

I wonder if the observations show a significant wobble? That would be the smoking gun.

[Windflier]

“what if the star were 30% or 40% iron from the get go”

Then it would be classified as a planet.

Iron does bad things to stars.

[Windflier]

On second thought (it’s late), a brown dwarf makes more sense. Even a small black hole would probably be eating the star already, and the orbital wobble of the star would be unmistakable.

[Jack Black]

Maybe it’s not a planet. Maybe it’s a space station.

Yes, a very big one, thus the title of the article: "alien megastructure"

It's pretty cool that legit scientists are speculating along the same lines that you are!