Posted on 10/15/2015 8:55:50 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
The paper doesn’t mention aliens, and it doesn’t even imply aliens. Not directly, at least. But the astronomers found a star so odd, with behavior so difficult to explain, that it’s clear something weird is happening there. And some of the astronomers who did the work are now looking into the idea that what they’ve found might (might!) be due to aliens.
But don’t let this idea run away with you. The scientists involved are being very skeptical and approaching this the right way.
The star is called KIC 8462852, and it’s one of more than a hundred thousand stars that was observed by NASA’s Kepler mission. Kepler stared at these stars, looking for dips in their brightness. These very slight dimmings can be due to many factors, but one is if the star has planets, and one (or more) of them orbits the star in such a way that it passes directly in front of the star as seen from Earth. If it does—what we call a transit—we see a tiny diminution of starlight, usually by less than a percent.
Thousands of exoplanets have been found this way. Usually the planet is on a short orbit, so the dip we see is periodic, repeating every few days, weeks, or months, depending on the size of the planet’s orbit.
KIC 8462852 is a star somewhat more massive, hotter, and brighter than the Sun. It’s about 1,500 light-years away so it’s too faint to see with the naked eye. The Kepler data for the star are pretty bizarre: There are dips in the light, but they aren’t periodic. They can be very deep; one dropped the amount of starlight by 15 percent, and another by a whopping 22 percent. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
What is clear is that the astronomers want a new, bigger telescope.
Taxpayers on the hook for the future UFO missions. Let private sector fund these crazy missions. Oh wait, there is no actual benefit, so it has to be gubmint.
Click bait headlines are shameful.
Well, Jesus did say he has other sheep in addition to the Jewish people (John 10 as I recall).
So, are they Martians? or have these nice scientists found them at this remote star? Jesus had someones in mind..... perhaps they were the Jewish seafarers who left Eilat in 632BCE for North America?
uh oh. I just Stepped In It Big Time, didn’t I? PLEEEEEZ don’t drag me into another attack on the LDS! I’m into astronomy tonight, if any folks wanna resurrect their barrages at Mormonism, please just go out in the back alley and throw your best punches at each other this time, okay? THANKS~
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ps: it ain’t worth much but my opinion has always been that there just have to be some intelligent life forms SOMEWHERE in the universe, given the parcity of same here on Rock Three...
cats excepted, of course
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Me, too. Give it to ‘em.
No, they just want to point ones that are already built at this star.
I don't think anyone's proposing building a probe to visit a sun 1400 light years away. By the time it got even 1/100th of the way there, much faster probes built by future generations will have already been there and back.
You’ve got a lot more faith in humanity than I do about now.
What seems increasingly clear this is one strange star/object. Once it’s understood what they’re observing, it’s pretty mind bending to think about. If the data is correct, there has never been anything seen like this.
This helps explain.
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“Straight away, we know we’re not dealing with a planet here. Even a Jupiter-sized planet only blocks roughly 1 percent of this kind of star’s light, and that’s about as big as a planet gets. It can’t be due to a star, either; we’d see it if it were. And the lack of a regular, repeating signal belies both of these as well. Whatever is blocking the star is big, though, up to half the width of the star itself!”
“Also, it turns out there are lots of these dips in the star’s light. Hundreds. And they don’t seem to be periodic at all. They have odd shapes to them, too. A planet blocking a star’s light will have a generally symmetric dip; the light fades a little, remains steady at that level, then goes back up later.”
What does LSD have to do with space aliens?
Aside from the idiotic and inane comments, this really is something worth looking in to.
Ha!
Ha! When they see what our “leaders” are like. the aliens will probably gulp down big doses of lsd
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