'Bizarre' star may suggest existence of 'alien civilisation'

[Hope]

http://bbc.in/1NeRPb8

Not sure that I know enough of the science of light to fully understand the claim that this star appears to have 'structures' surrounding it.

[Outrider]

If you have an object (a planet, say) orbiting a star in a plane that intersects with our line of sight of the star, then as it passes in front of the star it will stop some of the light and we can measure the drop in intensity. From this, and a gauge of the size (and therefore likely mass) of the star we can estimate the size of the planet and it's orbital radius.

What we have here is a series of objects in the same orbit, and from the light pattern the size varies along the length. If they were clumps of rock or ice (like the parts of the rings of Saturn) then over time you'd expect them to spread out rather evenly around the orbit, but these are clumped into distinct units.

It's possible that they're a cluster of natural satellite fragments, but it's difficult to see how such a structure would arise and remain intact. It's possible that we've just viewed it at the 'right' time, and it's a sparse ring of free rocks that will bounce off each other and spread out again.

It's also a  possibility that they are artificial structures. I've not seen enough information to know which is best supported by the data, but it's got people talking which is, I suppose, part of the point of releasing the story

O.

[BeRational]

Have they ruled out natural explanations first before jumping to such a claim?

I think not.

[jakswan]

1500 Light years away apparently, interesting.

[Maeght]

Have they ruled out natural explanations first before jumping to such a claim?

I think not.

It says it 'may' indicate an alien civilisation and have suggested some natural explanations for the structures - so you are right, they haven't ruled out a natural explanation but nor have they claimed this.

[SweetPea]

1500 Light years away apparently, interesting.

Really? So, is there equipment that can pick-up stuff that far away?

Outy.... over to you...

[jakswan]

1500 Light years away apparently, interesting.

Really? So, is there equipment that can pick-up stuff that far away?

Outy.... over to you...

The human eye?

Don't know if this is reliable:-

http://www.universetoday.com/110858/how-far-can-you-see-in-the-universe/

The most distant thing we can see with our bare eyeballs is Andromeda at 2.6 million light years,

Not suggesting this was used to come up the data relating to this star.

[Harrowby Hall]

The human eye?

Don't know if this is reliable:-

http://www.universetoday.com/110858/how-far-can-you-see-in-the-universe/

The most distant thing we can see with our bare eyeballs is Andromeda at 2.6 million light years,

Not suggesting this was used to come up the data relating to this star.

But this is refers to the Andromeda Galaxy which is composed of billions of stars and is as big as own galaxy, the Milky Way.

[Sriram]

The idea that artificial structures created by aliens could actually interfere with the light from a star seen from 1500 light years away....seems rather far fetched!!

[Outrider]

The idea that artificial structures created by aliens could actually interfere with the light from a star seen from 1500 light years away....seems rather far fetched!!

That's how some of us feel about the idea of gods, spirits, souls, karma and the like. The difference is that the maths on light interference is valid.

You couldn't tell the difference with the naked eye, and it's not just visible light that's being measured.

O.

[Sriram]

That's how some of us feel about the idea of gods, spirits, souls, karma and the like. .

O.

? ?  ?  ?

[SweetPea]

1500 Light years away apparently, interesting.

Really? So, is there equipment that can pick-up stuff that far away?

Outy.... over to you...

The human eye?

Don't know if this is reliable:-

http://www.universetoday.com/110858/how-far-can-you-see-in-the-universe/

The most distant thing we can see with our bare eyeballs is Andromeda at 2.6 million light years,

Not suggesting this was used to come up the data relating to this star.

Jaks, do you honestly think that the human eye, unaided, can see something 2.6 million light years away? This is surely misinformation. Outy, do you have any ideas on that one?

[Enki]

Sweet Pea,

Well I've seen the Andromeda Galaxy which is circa 2.6 million light years away with the unaided eye, several times. So, no, I don't think that this is misinformation at all. Mind you, I was in areas with superb viewing conditions. Incidentally I've regularly seen it using a pair of binoculars, and even better using a telescope.

I think the furthest individual stars one can see with the unaided eye are thousands rather than millions of light years away(including supernovas).

[Outrider]

Jaks, do you honestly think that the human eye, unaided, can see something 2.6 million light years away? This is surely misinformation. Outy, do you have any ideas on that one?

The most distant 'object' that has been seen by the naked eye was a stellar explosion from some 7.5 billion light years away (and, the speed of light being what it is, 7.5 billion years ago, as well). Of course, to the naked eye it was just a faint twinkle in the sky, but various telescopes were able to categorise it as by far the brightest object ever recorded, two and half million times brighter than the previous brightest supernova.

There had been 'brighter' objects than that supernova, but their emissions were not in the visible spectrum - gamma-ray bursts are typically the highest energy outputs that astronomers find on a semi-regular basis.

1500 Light years away apparently, interesting.

Really? So, is there equipment that can pick-up stuff that far away?

Outy.... over to you...

Depends on the distance, but yes. Whilst luminous intensity is susceptible to all sorts of intervening matter - that's why the best telescopes are those outside of the atmosphere - a lot of information can be discerned from both changes in that intensity, and changes to the frequency distribution.

We can't see the structure, we can only make deductions from the pattern of the 'light' that reaches the telescope, but measuring the rates of change of various frequencies across the spectrum we can model what might be causing the interruptions.

Of course, as a structure, it would need to be immense, far in excess not just of anything we've put into space, but in excess of anything we've built at all as a single structure.

O.

[SweetPea]

Sweet Pea,

Well I've seen the Andromeda Galaxy which is circa 2.6 million light years away with the unaided eye, several times. So, no, I don't think that this is misinformation at all. Mind you, I was in areas with superb viewing conditions. Incidentally I've regularly seen it using a pair of binoculars, and even better using a telescope.

I think the furthest individual stars one can see with the unaided eye are thousands rather than millions of light years away(including supernovas).

Enki, If you say so, I don't dispute it.... I just have difficulty comprehending the fact!

[SweetPea]

Jaks, do you honestly think that the human eye, unaided, can see something 2.6 million light years away? This is surely misinformation. Outy, do you have any ideas on that one?

The most distant 'object' that has been seen by the naked eye was a stellar explosion from some 7.5 billion light years away (and, the speed of light being what it is, 7.5 billion years ago, as well). Of course, to the naked eye it was just a faint twinkle in the sky, but various telescopes were able to categorise it as by far the brightest object ever recorded, two and half million times brighter than the previous brightest supernova.

There had been 'brighter' objects than that supernova, but their emissions were not in the visible spectrum - gamma-ray bursts are typically the highest energy outputs that astronomers find on a semi-regular basis.

1500 Light years away apparently, interesting.

Really? So, is there equipment that can pick-up stuff that far away?

Outy.... over to you...

Depends on the distance, but yes. Whilst luminous intensity is susceptible to all sorts of intervening matter - that's why the best telescopes are those outside of the atmosphere - a lot of information can be discerned from both changes in that intensity, and changes to the frequency distribution.

We can't see the structure, we can only make deductions from the pattern of the 'light' that reaches the telescope, but measuring the rates of change of various frequencies across the spectrum we can model what might be causing the interruptions.

Of course, as a structure, it would need to be immense, far in excess not just of anything we've put into space, but in excess of anything we've built at all as a single structure.

O.

Outy, thank you for the replies; as I said to enki, I just have difficulty getting my head round all this. When I have the time, I'm going to dig into the subject, more. It must be something to do with the light emanating from these objects that we can see them from such distances.... am I on the right track?

[Udayana]

No. Whether you see it or not depends on how large the object is and how much energy it is radiating.  Andromeda is a whole galaxy, our galaxy's next door neighbour. It contains an estimated trillion stars so is pretty big.

[Outrider]

Outy, thank you for the replies; as I said to enki, I just have difficulty getting my head round all this.

For all the excellent communicators of science out there, I don't think any of them have hit the nail quite as squarely as Douglas Adams:

"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

He doesn't try to make real comparisons, because we just aren't equipped to think in those sorts of terms. People are more ready to believe that quantum ideas because at that scale the 'normal' rules don't work the way we'd expect, but just increasing the scale of things blows people's minds. I'm particularly amused with people's grasp of time - the idea that Tyrannosaurus Rex lived closer in time to us than it did to Stegosaurs just doesn't compute.

When I have the time, I'm going to dig into the subject, more. It must be something to do with the light emanating from these objects that we can see them from such distances.... am I on the right track?

Essentially, yes. It's nothing more nor less than the sheer energy released at those wavelengths that allows there to still be sufficient energy density for us to register it by eye when it gets here.

O.

[Sriram]

Something relevant....latest..


http://us.cnn.com/2015/11/25/us/nasa-space-anomaly-comets/index.html

******************

An anomaly in deep space that has been the focus of speculation and observation for weeks over possible extraterrestrial life may have just been solved.

A research team from Iowa State University looked at data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, and found that the strange dips in light, which were initially theorized to be possible structures, were likely a "swarm of comets."

*****************

Something like that was the obvious explanation I would have thought!  Artificial structures indeed!!

[Maeght]

Something relevant....latest..


http://us.cnn.com/2015/11/25/us/nasa-space-anomaly-comets/index.html

******************

An anomaly in deep space that has been the focus of speculation and observation for weeks over possible extraterrestrial life may have just been solved.

A research team from Iowa State University looked at data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, and found that the strange dips in light, which were initially theorized to be possible structures, were likely a "swarm of comets."

*****************

Something like that was the obvious explanation I would have thought!  Artificial structures indeed!!

Indeed, which is why it was proposed before, as the article says. The structures 'theory' was one of many put forward and was te one, of course, picked up by the media and made into a headline.

[Jack Knave]

If you have an object (a planet, say) orbiting a star in a plane that intersects with our line of sight of the star, then as it passes in front of the star it will stop some of the light and we can measure the drop in intensity. From this, and a gauge of the size (and therefore likely mass) of the star we can estimate the size of the planet and it's orbital radius.

What we have here is a series of objects in the same orbit, and from the light pattern the size varies along the length. If they were clumps of rock or ice (like the parts of the rings of Saturn) then over time you'd expect them to spread out rather evenly around the orbit, but these are clumped into distinct units.

It's possible that they're a cluster of natural satellite fragments, but it's difficult to see how such a structure would arise and remain intact. It's possible that we've just viewed it at the 'right' time, and it's a sparse ring of free rocks that will bounce off each other and spread out again.

It's also a  possibility that they are artificial structures. I've not seen enough information to know which is best supported by the data, but it's got people talking which is, I suppose, part of the point of releasing the story

O.

Why wont gravity pull them together to form one large lump, as happened to the formation of our planet.

[Outrider]

Why wont gravity pull them together to form one large lump, as happened to the formation of our planet.

Eventually, as is predicted will happen with Saturn's rings, that will most likely happen, but it will take millenia for them to gradually lose their momentum until and unless they start to interact with any atmosphere the planet might have.

O.

[Hope]

Well I've seen the Andromeda Galaxy which is circa 2.6 million light years away with the unaided eye, several times. So, no, I don't think that this is misinformation at all. Mind you, I was in areas with superb viewing conditions. Incidentally I've regularly seen it using a pair of binoculars, and even better using a telescope.

The Andomeda Galaxy is just that, a galaxy.  The thing referred to in the OP is, I understand, not a galaxy but a discrete star.

[Jack Knave]

Eventually, as is predicted will happen with Saturn's rings, that will most likely happen, but it will take millenia for them to gradually lose their momentum until and unless they start to interact with any atmosphere the planet might have.

O.

But you said they should move apart. Perhaps they are in the process of coming together to form one lump?

[BashfulAnthony]

But you said they should move apart. Perhaps they are in the process of coming together to form one lump?

And talking about large lumps reminds me, I agree with Outrider here.