Posted on 10/28/2015 12:56:27 PM PDT by ETL
The mystery behind a strangely dimming star could soon be solved.
Astronomers around the world are keeping a close eye on the star KIC 8462852, which has dimmed dramatically numerous times over the past few years, dropping in brightness by up to 22 percent. These big dips have spurred speculation that the star may be surrounded by some type of alien megastructure — a hypothesis that will be put to the test if and when KIC 8462852 dims again.
"As long as one of those events occurs again, we should be able to catch it in the act, and then we'll definitely be able to figure out what we're seeing," said Jason Wright, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University.
"The simplest measurements we can take — just looking in different wavelengths [of light] — should rule out, or suggest, alien megastructures right away," Wright told Space.com.
KIC 8462852 is a large star that lies about 1,500 light-years from Earth. The dimming events, which were observed by NASA's Kepler space telescope between 2009 and 2013, seem too substantial to be caused by an orbiting planet, many astronomers say.
Another plausible explanation — a planet-forming disk — doesn't seem to make sense, either, because KIC 8462852 appears to be a mature star whose planets (if it has any) have already formed.
So scientists are entertaining a number of other ideas, hypothesizing that the dimming might be caused by a swarm of exocomets or perhaps even some type of orbiting alien megastructure. This latter possibility is unlikely, researchers stress, but it's still worth checking out. Indeed, astronomers have aimed radio telescopes at KIC 8462852 to search for signals that may have been generated by intelligent aliens.
And follow-up is proceeding on other fronts as well. A number of optical telescopes are watching the star, waiting for another multiday dimming event to take place. Once such an event begins, large scopes outfitted with spectrographs will swing into action, studying and monitoring the various wavelengths of light emanating from KIC 8462852, Wright said.
"That'll tell us what that material is that the starlight is being filtered through," he said. "It'll tell us if maybe we're looking at ordinary astrophysical dust; it'll tell us if we're looking at gas."
"If we see any color dependence in the dimming — if it gets dimmer in the ultraviolet than it does in the infrared, for instance — then that would rule out that whatever we're looking at is a solid object," Wright added.
Wright thinks the data will eventually show that KIC 8462852's dimming events are caused by dust. If that turns out to be the case, it would raise another mystery for astronomers to solve — namely, where all that dust is coming from. Is it being shed by exocomets, for example, or is the material trapped in a giant ring system around a Saturn-like alien planet?
"The amount of dimming we get tells us something about the size of the dust — is it as fine as smoke, or is it pebbles and things?" Wright said. "That'll help us figure out which of those scenarios we're looking at."
Don’t make me blow a fuse!! You know watt I’m saying!!
Thanks. I think I’ll add that to my ‘spooky’ Halloween tunes collection.
A tour of the “Krell wonders”...
Forbidden Planet: The great machine (4.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHXfMjp2zqI
>>Like gas, plasma does not have a definite shape or a definite volume unless enclosed in a container. Unlike gas, under the influence of a magnetic field, it may form structures such as filaments, beams and double layers.
Yah, but that container can be magnetic, right? Therefore, plasma can be self organizing when it is flowing and creating its own magnetic field. These “flux tubes” or Birkland currents are responsible for everything from the the fingers in your Plasma Ball to the arms of galaxies. Don’t get me started on ball lightning or St. Elmo’s fire.
Plasma also exists in several states depending on current load. Some of those states, when low energy (glow mode), are dim and don’t register on the observatory’s CCD detectors, but may, in fact, be responsible for the phenomena that the conjured “dark matter” and “dark energy” attempt to describe once scientists discover the electrical component to gravity.
Monsters from the ID.
What an amazing movie that was!!
“Perhaps someone might suggest an explanation for something I saw about a month ago that this article makes me remember. I’ll describe briefly”
Worthy of a MUFON report!
Thanks for the ping. You know, whatever it turns out to be, I find this story extraordinary, .
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I think it must have been something like that. Even so ... very odd.
You really think so? I don't know ... I was thinking along the lines of Boogieman (post 39) except for one thing, and that is that they -- not one satellite, but many -- were travelling horizontally as they were lit, then went dark for five or six seconds or more (dark longer than lit), but when they reappeared it was as if during the time of not being lit, they had moved vertically a considerable distance before being illuminated again, and then travelling the same horizontal direction as before only much higher. Suggesting a zig zag, when zig is lit and zag is dark! Maybe satellites do that, I don't know.
But satellites seem likely because of the way it glowed and changed, as if it was a shiny thing reflecting light from the sun.
Yabbut, if it is past its service life, what a scrapyard!
Forbidden Planet: The great machine (4.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHXfMjp2zqI
The Great Machine, based on the description in the above scene:
400 shafts, each 40 miles wide with 7800 levels.
I hate how Occam’s Razor slashes all the fun out of things.
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