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posted by martyb on Sunday January 15 2017, @02:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the Burrrrrp! dept.

Recently, some astronomers and others have excitedly pointed to Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) as a possible example of alien megastructures causing a star to dim. A new study favors a more terrestrial explanation - a planetary collision with the star:

A new study set to be published Monday in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society suggests that smart aliens aren't responsible for KIC 8462852's dimming. Instead, the authors suggest, a planetary collision with Tabby's Star is to blame. This crash would explain not only why Tabby's Star has had wild fluctuations in brightness as of late, but why the star has been dimming gradually over the course of the last century.

It seems strange that a spectacular collision between a star and planet would cause a star to become dimmer, explains Ken Shen, a UC Berkeley astronomer and author on the study. But, says Shen, "the star has to eventually go back to being dimmer—the equilibrium state—the state that it was at before the collision."

KC 8462852's more recent and erratic dimming episodes, however, can be explained by a mess of debris moving around the star and absorbing its light, sometimes making it appear significantly dimmer to us Earthlings.

Previously:
Mysterious Star May Be Orbited by Alien Megastructures
I'm STILL Not Sayin' Aliens. but This Star is Really Weird.
"Breakthrough Listen" to Search for Alien Radio Transmissions Near Tabby's Star


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday January 15 2017, @07:44PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday January 15 2017, @07:44PM (#454146) Journal

    Your fear will be warranted if the James Webb Space Telescope and a couple of other upcoming missions find nothing. Especially if we launch ATLAST [wikipedia.org] and find nothing. These missions would be imaging exoplanets and possibly finding evidence of vegetation.

    Is the situation so dire that we can't wait another 5-10 years to get it right? I doubt it.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Sunday January 15 2017, @07:53PM

    by Sulla (5173) on Sunday January 15 2017, @07:53PM (#454152) Journal

    I wonder how many times a similar thing can be said. Will be nice to be able to tell my kids in 15 years that they just need to wait a bit longer, just as my dad assured me a decade ago that we were right on the edge and my grandfather told him that it wouldnt be long either.

    Fortunately we seem to be seeing some actual progress for the first time in a long time, but I am sure that means a lot to a kid growing up listening to radio SF who wont live long enough to see it.

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