[–] cointelpro_shill 1 point 7 points 8 points (+8|-1) ago
If "After All" in the headline is intentional, that makes 3 David Bowie references in this article
[–] 8_billion_eaters 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
Ringworld
[–] Javik2186 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Speaker system: "Welcome to Ringworld visitor, please enjoy our award winning Gregorian chant during your stay. Please enjoy your stay at Ringworld!"
[–] 8_billion_eaters 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
"MIT students attending the 1971 World Science Fiction Convention chanted, "The Ringworld is unstable! The Ringworld is unstable!" Niven says that one reason he wrote The Ringworld Engineers was to address these engineering problems."
[–] Mal-2 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago (edited ago)
Could it simply be some rapidly moving gas or dust or other form of obscuration that isn't part of the star's environment, but happens to lie on a line between us and it? Perhaps what we're seeing is just a dense patch in our own Oort cloud.
Well, someone else suggested I crunch the numbers, so I did. Here is that post in its entirely.
Fair enough, I'll sanity-check my figures and report accordingly -- whether they support my position or refute it.
The distance to the star is 1480 ly. The distance to the Oort cloud is 1.5-2 ly. Let's use the maximum since I'm trying to establish the minimum possible size of such an object. This is 0.14% of the way there, which would have very little effect on the required size of the object. It would have to be essentially two AU in size.
Two AU -- and that's the minimum necessary to explain the observations right now. This completely ignores the photographic evidence going back 200 years. 300 million km. That's a big fucking clump.
So while I'm not prepared to say it's impossible, I would agree it's pretty improbable.
[–] pm-me-your-pm 1 point 2 points 3 points (+3|-1) ago
Schaefer saw the same century-long dimming in his manual readings, and calculated that it would require 648,000 comets, each 200 kilometres wide, to have passed by the star – completely implausible, he says.
And yet the article is implying that it's more likely that the structures are artificial?
[–] rwbj 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Most of everything we know indicates life, and presumably intelligent life, is nothing special even if we have yet to observe it outside of our planet. Searching for dyson spheres has been formally hypothesized as a means of detecting advanced alien civilizations long before KIC 8462852. So it's not like these ideas and hypothesis are coming up after the fact, even though this particular star does have one unexpected quirk in the lack of detectable emitted infrared radiation. Add to this the fact that we've only relatively recently had the technology and consequently the data available to begin actively looking for dyson spheres and it's not quite as 'out there' as it might seem at first.
Really this wouldn't be a big deal if this was just new evidence of a previously hypothesized particle or something benign along those lines. The reason it seems so inconceivable and improbable is not because of the evidence, but because of the implications.
[–] pm-me-your-pm 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
I agree, but I also don't think that "aliens" should be the first hypothesis proposed, unless there is overwhelming evidence to suggest it's the case. This isn't the fault of the scientists doing the research - it's the fault of the media. In the original article a few months ago, someone made an off-the-cuff remark like "Hey, it could be alien superstructures, for all we know", and the headlines were "SCIENTISTS CONFIRM ALIENS EXIST!!!!!". Not that drastic, but you get the idea. I just don't like the sensationalism.
[–] arrjayjee 1 point 7 points 8 points (+8|-1) ago
Possible alien megastructure that's been slowly diminishing in brightness? At this rate it will disappeaar altogether which leads me to believe it's a Dyson Sphere.
[–] 3930401? 0 points 11 points 11 points (+11|-0) ago (edited ago)
Based on what we believe we know about technology, a structure like that would emit radiation in the infrared range, which would be detectable, even when the object isn't blocking our view of the star. Of course, it is possible that this is some form of technology that we currently cannot recognize, which wouldn't emit radiation. On the other hand, it could also be a small black hole that is either within that system, or moving on a course somewhere between us and the star that keeps it in line with that star from our view.
[–] Codewow 0 points 11 points 11 points (+11|-0) ago
Maybe aliens have learned how to harness radiation to use as power as well. We only use radiation for heat right now.
[–] nicethingyoucanthave 0 points 6 points 6 points (+6|-0) ago
It doesn't necessarily have to radiate in all directions though. Moving energy around is what civilizations do. Maybe their power stations or their heat exchangers are at the poles, and we're viewing the system on edge.
[–] Loumedia 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago
His refutation was based solely on anecdotal human evidence. He says it probably isn't aliens because of how fast the construction is, however how the fuck would he know?
[–] [deleted] 1 point 2 points 3 points (+3|-1) ago
[–] SirFoxx 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
He's here all week folks. Shows at 5 and 7pm. Please try the veal.