Posted on 08/11/2016 4:31:57 AM PDT by samtheman
Remember Tabby’s Star? It’s the star that astronomer Tabetha Boyajian – who reported its strangeness in a Ted Talk in February, 2016 – famously called “the most mysterious star in the galaxy.” It’s mysterious because astronomers have never seen another star do what this star does. One explanation for the strange dimming of its light is that the star has an alien-built megastructure – a Dyson sphere – around it. Does it? Will we ever know for sure? Those are unanswered questions, but, while you’re pondering it, here’s the latest on this wonderful star.
On August 3, 2016, two astronomers added more evidence that Tabby’s Star – also known as KIC 8462852 – is just plain strange. Benjamin Montet with the California Institute of Technology and Joshua Simon with Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington have uploaded their paper to the arXiv preprint server detailing their study of the star by analyzing data from the NASA’s Kepler space telescope (a famed planet-finding telescope) over the past four years.
They found that the star has been decreasing in brightness at an unprecedented rate.
(Excerpt) Read more at earthsky.org ...
We don’t know what we don’t know.
The star is simply dying. Stand by for a supernova.
Looking forward to the James Webb looking at this.
Vital Facts
The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, with longer wavelength coverage and greatly improved sensitivity. The longer wavelengths enable JWST to look much closer to the beginning of time and to hunt for the unobserved formation of the first galaxies, as well as to look inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today.
Proposed Launch Date: JWST will be launched in October 2018.
Launch Vehicle: Ariane 5 ECA
Mission Duration 5 - 10 years
Total payload mass: Approx 6200 kg, including observatory, on-orbit consumables and launch vehicle adaptor.
Diameter of primary Mirror: ~6.5 m (21.3 ft)
Clear aperture of primary Mirror: 25 m2
Primary mirror material: beryllium coated with gold
Mass of primary mirror: 705 kg
Mass of a single primary mirror segment: 20.1 kg for a single beryllium mirror, 39.48 kg for one entire primary mirror segment assembly (PMSA).
Focal length: 131.4 meters
Number of primary mirror segments: 18
Optical resolution: ~0.1 arc-seconds
Wavelength coverage: 0.6 - 28.5 microns
Size of sun shield: 21.197 m x 14.162 m (69.5 ft x 46.5 ft)
Orbit: 1.5 million km from Earth orbiting the L2 Point
There are no aliens! Anywhere! Period!
Geez...
There are no radio signals from Tabby’s star, at least none detected.
But if your civilization is advanced enough to build a Dyson Sphere, maybe you’ve long since given up radio transmission as a communication method.
Interestingly, Tabby’s star is almost 1500 light years from Earth, according to Wikipedia.
So the light we’re currently seeing left the star 1500 years ago and any “alien construction” that may or may not have happened would now be 1500 years old.
If there were a culture able to build a structure around a star 1500 years ago, imagine how advanced they’d be by now.
Indeed. These type of mega projects take time to complete.
The troubles with the unions alone could cause the whole mess to drag on for a thousand years.
If this really is a Dyson Sphere (or something similar), then they already were extremely advanced when they got started. Probably thousands of years ahead of our current technology.
I personally do not believe this is aliens. It’s just too improbable. Much more likely some as yet unexplained confluence of natural events, gas clouds, exploded planet, whatever.
However, the subject is interesting and if I was the boss of the James Webb, it would be a primary target under my direction.
The details of this star’s dimming was discovered by analyzing Kepler data.
One technology I do believe in: space telescopes.
The more, the merrier. The bigger, the better.
When Quasars were first discovered there were some who thought they were aliens trying to blink messages...until we figured out there were just Quasars.
I agree. Aliens unlikely. Still interesting.
If nothing else, it puts the idea of a Dyson Sphere in the public mind, which is a good thing.
Someday (not soon, of course) we will hopefully be building one of our own.
Or something similar. Rings, as pictured in the article. Or swarms of sun-catching solar-orbit satellites.
Why let all those photons go to waste?
We are alone.....no aliens.....
Except on TV ......
Although Jam s Carville may be one.....he is more likely the reproductive offspring of a human and a serpent....
A tautology?
A tautology?
No matter where you go, there you are.
"I'm thinking this Slate Gray color for the Dyson sphere is sort of dull. Is it too late to go with the Sunrise Beige color?"
*sigh* "We can do that, but it will be extra. I'll have to get my painter back here. That, and you're looking at two coats to cover the gray. Say about 42,000,000,000,000 gallons of the Sunset Beige".
"Surise Beige."
"Sunrise, Sunset. It's gonna' cause a delay."
It would be very sad if it were really Dyson Sphere.
It would mean that there really is no way to cheat the speed of light, or even do effective STL travel, and that we are forever confined to a single system.
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