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I find it interesting that there are so few posts in this thread.

It may not be an Alien Civ but it very well could be, I would have expected a fair amount of speculation..... well early days yet.

Could it be a Dyson Swarm? you know it very well could be.... and only 1000 or so light years away which makes us in their back yard cosmically speaking.
A meta 2 civ? hell we would look so primitive to them... if indeed it is an artificial structure that is causing this start to behave the way it is.
 
Had to Google Dyson Swarm and just noticed the link to the published paper but I'm already betting I won't be able to make heads or tails of it.

The thing I found a little disheartening is akin to a point that Stoney made above and a point made elsewhere. If this was an well advanced civilization their technology could be such that there would be no radio signals to pick up because they transcended that type of communication and information gathering and yet any access to more sophisticated equipment on our part may very well be conditional on whether any basic radio signals could be found as a starting point.
 
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Wade said:
Had to Google Dyson Swarm and just noticed the link to the published paper but I'm already betting I won't be able to make heads or tails of it.

The thing I found a little disheartening is akin to a point that Stoney made above and a point made elsewhere. If this was an well advanced civilization their technology could be such that there would be no radio signals to pick up because they transcended that type of communication and information gathering and yet any access to more sophisticated equipment on our part may very well be conditional on whether any basic radio signals could be found as a starting point.
Click to expand...

Absolutely correct.
I noted from one post I read about this "researchers saying we should now look for radio signals"... well hate to rain on the parade but I suspect they will find none or not notice them if there are any. Look at our own civilization for a cue to what a Meta 2 civ would be like (moving away from traditional forms of broadcast).. hell even if we did come across a signal would we even notice it as such? maybe and maybe not.. if they detect a strong signal in the 1,420 megahertz range we can out right assume it is not natural (frequency of Hydrogen).

Just musings... oh and I should check (I have not yet) but if I am correct it takes in theory a Meta 2 Civ and above to build such things as Dyson swarms... Please correct me if I am wrong here.

PS: for those that don't know the "WOW" signal was in the 1'420mhz range.

"It's a band of radio frequencies sandwiched between emission from neutral hydrogen – 1,420 MHz (a wavelength of 21cm) – and emission from molecules of hydroxyl (1,666MHz, 18cm wavelength), which is composed of one atom of hydrogen, and one atom of oxygen."

By the way broadcast in this range on Earth is against most local laws.
 
kanakaris said:
Excellent piece

What’s Orbiting KIC 8462852 – Shattered Comet or Alien Megastructure?
Click to expand...

Nice find there .. Saved that link to archive.

"A great idea except that dust absorbs light from its host star, warms up and glows in infrared light. We should be able to see this “infrared excess” if it were there, but instead KIC 8462852 beams the expected amount of infrared for a star of its class and not a jot more. There’s also no evidence in data taken by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) several years previously that a dust-releasing collision happened around the star.'

That there is very compelling stuff... the light sig is all messed up if it is a natural phenomena... interesting indeed.
 
Wade said:
How Astronomers Will Determine If That 'Megastructure' Really Is Alien
Click to expand...

“This star is 1,480 light years away,” Shostak pointed out. “That’s about 300 times farther than the nearest stars. Any signals [from that distance] are 100,000 times weaker, and that’s a big factor. Even assuming that there is anybody there, they would have to have either a really hunky transmitter, for you to be able to hear it at that distance, or it would have to be deliberately focused in our direction.”

And that there my friend is the catch, SETI will not find anything because there is nothing for them to find.
The key words here are "deliberately focused in our direction", and considering the time scales involved in this 1,480 years ago humans were not that advanced and why would any civilization send us a broadcast anyway?
If and I mean "IF" this is a mega structure, then the civilization building it (near on 1500 years ago) was well on it's way to being a type 2 civ and by now would be well into being one, we on the other hand have not cracked out of type zero as yet.

You can see what I am getting at here.
 
More strangeness with KIC 8462852 (Tabby’s Star)

In addition to the irregular periodic dipping in brightness of up to 22% announced last year, a study of historical data released earlier this year showed that there might have been overall gradual dimming of 20% of the star’s light over the last 100 years. And a recently released study of Kepler data showed an even faster overall dimming during the period Kepler was observing it, including a 200 day period in which it suddenly began dimming at a rate about 8 times faster than the previous 3 years. Like the irregular dipping in brightness, astronomers have no idea what could cause this dimming, and it has been seen no where else.

I get a kick out of the way some science writers feel they need to keep warning us "that it's very, very unlikely that this strange flickering star has anything to do with aliens” (Fiona MacDonald). First, since we are ignorant of the state of advanced technical civilizations in the galaxy, we don’t have the knowledge on which to calculate the likelihood of alien involvement vs any other cause. And second, since this is the only instance of this behavior that has ever been seen, it is stating the obvious to say that its cause, whether alien related or otherwise, is "very, very unlikely”.

Tabby’s Star: Weird Star Gets Weirder - Sky & Telescope

Alien Megastructure? 'Tabby's Star' Continues to Baffle Scientists

Tabby talks about Tabby’s Star

 
Sand said:
More strangeness with KIC 8462852 (Tabby’s Star)

In addition to the irregular periodic dipping in brightness of up to 22% announced last year, a study of historical data released earlier this year showed that there might have been overall gradual dimming of 20% of the star’s light over the last 100 years. And a recently released study of Kepler data showed an even faster overall dimming during the period Kepler was observing it, including a 200 day period in which it suddenly began dimming at a rate about 8 times faster than the previous 3 years. Like the irregular dipping in brightness, astronomers have no idea what could cause this dimming, and it has been seen no where else.

I get a kick out of the way some science writers feel they need to keep warning us "that it's very, very unlikely that this strange flickering star has anything to do with aliens” (Fiona MacDonald). First, since we are ignorant of the state of advanced technical civilizations in the galaxy, we don’t have the knowledge on which to calculate the likelihood of alien involvement vs any other cause. And second, since this is the only instance of this behavior that has ever been seen, it is stating the obvious to say that its cause, whether alien related or otherwise, is "very, very unlikely”.

Tabby’s Star: Weird Star Gets Weirder - Sky & Telescope

Alien Megastructure? 'Tabby's Star' Continues to Baffle Scientists

Tabby talks about Tabby’s Star

Click to expand...

Think about how stupid we humans must look to the aliens that received out numeric radio signals and decided the best way to prove life and existence was to use a flickering or fluxing light source to say "hey dummies, we are right here". At what point do we start contemplating that these light sources maybe reminders of a past civilization that existed right here, one that flew on carpets and hot air like wheels and shot Lasers at each other after building pyramids all around the world and sharing crops with the lesser folk??


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Sand said:
More strangeness with KIC 8462852 (Tabby’s Star)
Click to expand...

If you look at the star properties, there is a very high chance that an advanced civilization could not exist around this star, even if there were planets around it (assuming they will find one and that it exists in all possible 'habitable zones'). The star is much to bright and massive to provide a stable habitable planet, and on top of that, it's period of rotation is 0.88 days, which implies it is probably a very young star, and if that is the case, not enough time for a planetary system to fully develop with an advanced civilization. It will be very interesting to see what they determine to be the cause of the brightness changes.[/QUOTE]
 
breddell said:
If you look at the star properties, there is a very high chance that an advanced civilization could not exist around this star, even if there were planets around it (assuming they will find one and that it exists in all possible 'habitable zones'). The star is much to bright and massive to provide a stable habitable planet, and on top of that, it's period of rotation is 0.88 days, which implies it is probably a very young star, and if that is the case, not enough time for a planetary system to fully develop with an advanced civilization. It will be very interesting to see what they determine to be the cause of the brightness changes.
Click to expand...

What makes this interesting is that the cause of the strange behavior, assuming we eventually figure it out, will be something we wouldn’t expect to happen. While I look forward to finding out the cause whatever it might be, it’s interesting to note the 2014 paper by Dr Manfred Cuntz examining the possibility of life arising around F-type stars. It noted that while they would present additional obstacles, F-type stars would also provide a larger habitable zone, and the more intense light could provide a better environment for a quicker initiation and evolution of life.

Could Alien Life Cope with a Hotter, Brighter Star? - Astrobiology Magazine
 
Sand said:
It noted that while they would present additional obstacles, F-type stars would also provide a larger habitable zone, and the more intense light could provide a better environment for a quicker initiation and evolution of life.
Click to expand...

Interesting article. I guess it is a possibility, but I would assign very very low odds. I noticed you mentioned that F-type stars would also provide "a larger habitable zone"... research suggests that there are at least 7-9 habitable zones now, all of which need to be satisfied in order for life to even have an opportunity to exist. I'm not sure if the habitable zones would even overlap for this type of star. Nevertheless, the mystery of the increase/decrease of brightness needs to be understood. Thanks for posting the article.
 
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