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Tabby's Star, speculated to be surrounded by a cloud of debris or alien megastructures, has dimmed yet again, causing multiple observatories to take notice:
Among the telescopes [Jason] Wright said researchers now hope to use to catch this dimming event in the act:
—The Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope
—The Automated Planet Finder at Lick Observatory near San Jose, Calif., a robotic optical telescope
—Both telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, which operate in optical and near-infrared wavelengths
—The MMT Observatory in Arizona, an optical telescope
—NASA's Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission, which operates in gamma ray, x-ray, ultraviolet and optical wavelengths
—Las Cumbres Observatory, a worldwide network of robotic optical telescopes
—Fairborn Observatory in Arizona, which operates in optical wavelengths
—The Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, which operates in optical and near-infrared wavelengths
—The Hobby–Eberly Telescope in Texas, an optical telescope
Also at The Verge.
One astronomer has proposed looking at the nearest 43 to 85 pulsars for megastructures (arXiv):
Osmanov estimates that the habitable zone around a relatively slowly-rotating pulsar (with a period of about half a second) would be on the order of 0.1 AU. According to his calculations, a ring-like megastructure that orbited a pulsar at this distance would emit temperatures on the order of 390 K (116.85 °C; 242.33 °F), which means that the megastructure would be visible in the IR band.
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
Non-Alien Explanation for Tabby's Star Dimming: It Ate a Planet
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @06:54AM (3 children)
Ancient aliens would be an explanation.
However, a simpler explanation that also fits all the facts are humans who have either gone insane or are using any number of naturally occurring hallucinogenic drugs.
When I was a kid, it was a common experience for religious people to hear voices in their heads. It was either an angel or their god commanding them to do something or another or alerting them to some danger. Unfortunately, humans like to use religion when they should be using mental health services.
Occam's razor demands that we believe the simplest explanation that fits the facts.
Once there are facts to demonstrate that it wasn't all just tall tales and hallucinations, then we can consider ancient aliens a bit more seriously.
But whatever. Ancient aliens is a religion in its own right, complete with the usual signs of mental illness that go untreated because "muh religion!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @07:02AM (2 children)
I was making a sarcastic comment about how "aliens did it" is too vague an explanation to warrant more than a cursory "ok, maybe".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @09:29AM
OK, maybe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @12:12AM
Oh, apologies. Here, borrow my sarcasm tags: <sarcasm> </sarcasm>. They're all yours!