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posted by Fnord666 on Friday October 06 2017, @08:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-needs-a-bit-of-swiffering dept.

Tabby's star, aka KIC 8462852, is likely surrounded by orbiting dust grains that block ultraviolet light:

The bizarre long-term dimming of Tabby's star—also known as Boyajian's star, or, more formally, KIC 8462852—is likely caused by dust, not a giant network of solar panels or any other "megastructure" built by advanced aliens, a new study suggests.

Astronomers came to this conclusion after noticing that this dimming was more pronounced in ultraviolet (UV) than infrared light. Any object bigger than a dust grain would cause uniform dimming across all wavelengths, study team members said.

"This pretty much rules out the alien megastructure theory, as that could not explain the wavelength-dependent dimming," lead author Huan Meng of the University of Arizona said in a statement. "We suspect, instead, there is a cloud of dust orbiting the star with a roughly 700-day orbital period."

Aliens left to roam free once again.

Previously: Tabby's Star Under Observation After Dimming Event Detected
Tabby's Star Dimming Could be Explained by a Saturn-Like Exoplanet

Extinction and the Dimming of KIC 8462852 (DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa899c) (DX) (arXiv)


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @08:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @08:53PM (#578330)

    We all know the truth. It's a vastly more advanced civilization with a Dyson structure around that star.

    But the violent, authoritarian left doesn't want you to know about it because the only way to achieve such heights as a civilization is through Capitalism and the Free Market™!

    In fact, I have it on good authority that the Clintons have dispatched one of their evil death squads from 100 Broad Street to nuke those freedom loving aliens so their authoritarian communist agenda won't be thwarted.

    #MAGA

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