Studies pour cold water on idea of alien megastructures around a distant star
Comets and changes in telescopes offered up as explanation for star's dimming brightness.
A new study adds fuel to the fiery debate raging between astronomers about a possible alien megastructure built around a star 1,480 light-years away.
In case you missed it, the star, KIC 8462852 (otherwise known as Tabby), has been causing a stir since last October, when a team of astronomers suggested the faint possibility that the strange dips they'd observed in the star's brightness could be attributed to extraterrestrial life.
This latest paper lends some support to a study which originally discredited the alien megastructure idea. That study suggested that comets, not aliens, were responsible for the eerie dimming.
A Dyson swarm
Yale astronomer Tabby Boyajianand, Penn State astronomer Jason Wright and colleagues posted their paper about KIC 8462852 on April 14, 2015. The paper was published on arXiv, an online archive where researchers can submit scientific papers without being peer reviewed.
It found uneven dips in the brightness of the star based on observations from citizen scientists. This suggested that irregularly shaped objects passing across the face of the star were temporarily blocking some of its light.