Alien Structure or just rocks? I'm thinking rocks..

[Gingerbread Demon]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...structures-orbiting-a-star-near-a6693886.html

If you excuse the really bad headline which shows a total lack of education it's interesting. I'd love to think it is something but I think it's probably something more logical like a cluster of asteroids or some large body that is causing those readings. But I live in hope..

If an alien came to Earth and visited you personally, and tried to make friends, offered you a trip into space to see what is out there would you do it?

ME: Oh bloody hell yes I would... I would jump at that, and imagine what things you might see and stuff?

Hell could even land an alien waifu or such.. Hell no Earth women like me.

 

[Taylirious]

If they are cube shaped, we are in trouble!

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

If they are cube shaped, we are in trouble!

Time to duck and cover...

Things might be worse if it is ring shaped..

 

[Kor]

I think there's already a thread about this in the Science & Tech forum...

Kor

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I think there's already a thread about this in the Science & Tech forum...

Kor

If there was I might have missed it. I shall look.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Coco, I know you asked for this thread to be closed down, but I see no reason why we can't have a separate discussion of the topic here too, if you're okay with that. Some people here don't post in SciTech, so they might like to get a chance to comment on it here.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

For the more scientifically minded, I suggest reading the following papers rather than relying on the sensationalist gibberish that is typical of journalists:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.03622v1.pdf
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1510.04606v1.pdf

 

[RJDiogenes]

Of course, it's very unlikely that this will be anything like a Dyson Swarm, but it's certainly the most exciting development in SETI since the Wow Signal. And, whatever it turns out to be, it's pretty weird.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

A lot more data is definitely needed. There's a very interesting similarity between the events at D1204-1208 and D1537-1543, although they differ in magnitude by a factor of 10 and slightly in duration. They seem like they could be caused by a central body surrounded by a ring but that's only one interpretation.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Coco, I know you asked for this thread to be closed down, but I see no reason why we can't have a separate discussion of the topic here too, if you're okay with that. Some people here don't post in SciTech, so they might like to get a chance to comment on it here.

No problem.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Her's a basic rule of thumb in deciding if it's aliens or something unexplained:

If a news story presents something that can't readily or easily be explained, and aliens are bandied about as a possible explination: IT'S UNEXPLAINED.

Unless you're filming a new episode of something to do with ancient civilization and aliens for the History Channel, it will not ever be aliens.


Does that means aliens don't exist? I'm not picking either side.

And it won't be tiny blackholes either.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

And it won't be tiny blackholes either.

No that's reserved for the next time the LHC is run to full power

Remember all the hysteria about that before they even turned it on..

 

[tharpdevenport]

Yeah. And for Y2K planes were going to fall from the sky, computers were going to explode, cats and dogs were going to live together, etc.

 

[Non Sync]

They discovered where all those socks that disappeared from the washer/dryer went...

 

[ManOnTheWave]

[Tom Baker] Oh, look! Rocks! [/Tom Baker]

 

[sidious618]

The X-Files has been announced as coming back in January and now this? Don't let the government lies persuade you; this is the alien invasion.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Even if KIC 8462852 harbours aliens, they're so far away that they might as well be rocks. If we could establish definitively that the phenomenon is artificially induced, which is a big if, perhaps the most useful impact it might have is to belittle our puny ambitions and achievements as a species.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Even if KIC 8462852 harbours aliens, they're so far away that they might as well be rocks. If we could establish definitively that the phenomenon is artificially induced, which is a big if, perhaps the most useful impact it might have is to belittle our puny ambitions and achievements as a species.

In the long term nothing much changes even if it is aliens..

The world will move on and I suspect such a revelation won't change our attitudes..

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

A lot of people would remain in denial...

 

[Amaraen]

I personally do not believe in the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligent life. If this was proven to be a Dyson's Sphere then that would definitely be pretty neat.

From what I understand, we have looked at like a really tiny fraction of the galaxy, and are comparing this anomaly to the very small sample size we have discovered. For all we know, this type of star system is far more common than not. Really it could be anything.

I think an analogy would be, imagine we are looking at atoms. We have studied dozens of them, but they are all Hydrogen atoms. Suddenly we see an atom with 10 protons and think it must be some crazy thing that can't really exist. Really it's just a Neon atom, but since we have only ever looked at Hydrogen atoms we cannot explain it.

If science and knowledge are a forest, we only have knowledge of a single leaf. I think that seeing this phenomenon and saying it is aliens is very much equivalent to ancient Greeks seeing a thunderstorm and saying it is Zeus.

Still, I am hoping it is a Dyson Sphere. That would be very magical.