comets or aliens
Not comets or anything else.
“Either one of our refutations has some hidden loophole, or some theorist needs to come up with some other proposal,” Bradley Schaefer, an astronomer at Louisiana State University, told the New Scientist. “The comet-family idea was reasonably put forth as the best of the proposals, even while acknowledging that they all were a poor lot. But now we have a refutation of the idea, and indeed, of all published ideas.”
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Re: comets or aliens
Still no better explanation than aliens.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Re: comets or aliens
I love that the best theory they have right now is a Dyson Sphere being built.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
Re: comets or aliens
The changes in brightness being used to find exoplanets like earth are in the 0.01% sort of range. This is an overall 3% decline in brightness in a short time frame with spikes of 14%. That's not weird, that's inconceivable. That's being sucked in by the Starkiller Base shit right there.
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Re: comets or aliens
There are stars which have dimming spikes that are more drastic than this one, but they're all of known and predictable periodicity and none of them have hit their main sequence yet. In addition, those spikes tend to be extreme because of all the debris and crap floating around in young star systems. Well, there's provably no evidence of any of that within the nearby vicinity of this one. Nor is there evidence of a massive collision of two or more celestial bodies that's big enough to block out enough light. The total surface area for a comet swarm that you'd need to do that is, turn to a pun, astronomical. Not to deflate anyone's alien theories, either, but there aren't any tech-related radio signals detectable by SETI. The most startling sentence I can find is this:
That's insane. Elder god, Cthulu-scale insane. And that's not using shitty estimates from equally shitty photographs that are a century old, that's five years ago.The first major dip, on 5 March 2011, obscured the star's brightness by up to 15%, and the other (on 28 February 2013) by up to 22%. In comparison, a planet the size of Jupiter would only obscure a star of this size by 1%, indicating that whatever is blocking light during the star's major dips is not a planet, but rather something covering up to half the width of the star.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Re: comets or aliens
To be fair, they literally, just started looking yesterday or today. There's an article out there today about that very thing.but there aren't any tech-related radio signals detectable by SETI.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
Re: comets or aliens
No, they've been looking since last October. Know what they found?Leisher wrote:To be fair, they literally, just started looking yesterday or today. There's an article out there today about that very thing.but there aren't any tech-related radio signals detectable by SETI.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Re: comets or aliens
Not according to the article I read at work today.
They're also looking for laser communication.
Although, they admit that perhaps there's communication methods they don't know about.
They're also looking for laser communication.
Although, they admit that perhaps there's communication methods they don't know about.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
Re: comets or aliens
Well, then it's bullshit. Tell them I said so.Leisher wrote:Not according to the article I read at work today.
They're also looking for laser communication.
The first pass was a two-week, fairly intensive scan ... and it was only radio.
Yeah, that springs to mind. But absolutely zero radio sigs coming from there isn't a good indicator. If it's not used for communications, you'd think there'd be some kind of buzz on the band somewhere.Although, they admit that perhaps there's communication methods they don't know about.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Re: comets or aliens
I'd imagine any civilization advanced enough to start needing to capture that much of the power of their star will have first spent a lot of time optimizing energy loss in their major technologies. For us to see it it would have to be fairly powerful, and they may be too advanced to be leaking that much power in our direction.
"ATTENTION: Customers browsing porn must hold magazines with both hands at all times!"
Re: comets or aliens
I'll try to dig it up for you tomorrow. I think it was NASA or somebody, so you can write them and tell them how to do their jobs.Well, then it's bullshit. Tell them I said so.
1. Always remember we can only look for what we know and understand. Might be shit out there that we don't even think to look for.Yeah, that springs to mind. But absolutely zero radio sigs coming from there isn't a good indicator. If it's not used for communications, you'd think there'd be some kind of buzz on the band somewhere.
2. In other news, the Russians might have found something elsewhere.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
Re: comets or aliens
What job? Launching boring-ass deep space probes when we should be setting up fucking moonbases by now?Leisher wrote:I'll try to dig it up for you tomorrow. I think it was NASA or somebody, so you can write them and tell them how to do their jobs.
And no one else can seem to locate it. Surprise, surprise.2. In other news, the Russians might have found something elsewhere.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Re: comets or aliens
My official guess: It's actually a binary star... or almost. There's a large dark mass, not quite big enough to fuse, or maybe not made of hydrogen, or maybe just a brown dwarf, and it and the star are orbiting each other.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Re: comets or aliens
If that were true, the data would be more periodic. I'm sticking with aliens.GORDON wrote:My official guess: It's actually a binary star... or almost. There's a large dark mass, not quite big enough to fuse, or maybe not made of hydrogen, or maybe just a brown dwarf, and it and the star are orbiting each other.
It's not me, it's someone else.
Re: comets or aliens
You could detect the gravitational pull for an object half the size of the sun. Far as any instruments can tell, there's a whole shitload of nothing even close to the total mass and area you'd need.GORDON wrote:My official guess: It's actually a binary star... or almost. There's a large dark mass, not quite big enough to fuse, or maybe not made of hydrogen, or maybe just a brown dwarf, and it and the star are orbiting each other.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Re: comets or aliens
Theory not involving aliens.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Re: comets or aliens
Plausible explanation.
“We propose that the secular dimming behavior is the result of the inspiral of a planetary body or bodies into KIC 8462852,” researchers from Columbia University and UC Berkley said in a new research paper.
If the star did consume a planet, it could explain the unusual light pattern, researchers said.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."