Is this to blame for the Fermi paradox?

[Kemaiku]

The type of star the Sun belongs to (a subgroup of Class G) is very rare, largely because of the larger abundance of red stars in the galaxy, and that yellow stars are typically dwarf stars with little in the way of planetary development.

Until we know why G2 stars are rare, what causes them, and if it follows that others will develop similar planetary systems around them, we can't even say that *they* are good for allowing sapient life.

Nevermind the vast majority of other star types giving rise to systems with either largely super Jovian style planets or in a few cases, none at all.

Until at least one other sapient life form appears completely independent of our system, we have nothing to work with.

 

[scotthm]

Understanding exoplanets has given us some rather solid info on what we should expect.

I don't think you really get how much that aspect of the equation has been changed.

We still don't even know what the equation is.

---------------

 

[Autistoid]

Understanding exoplanets has given us some rather solid info on what we should expect.

I don't think you really get how much that aspect of the equation has been changed.

We still don't even know what the equation is.

---------------

Eh what? We know a hell of alot actually.

The primary limiting factor to hte possibilities of life is liquid water, and we know for near certain that it is quite likely common.

 

[scotthm]

We still don't even know what the equation is.

Eh what? We know a hell of alot actually.

The primary limiting factor to hte possibilities of life is liquid water, and we know for near certain that it is quite likely common.

When scientists can demonstrate abiogenesis in the laboratory you can talk to me about it.

---------------

 

[N-121973]

Well I came across this story via one of my Facebook friends and found it fascinating. I imagine it will turn out to be some form of natural phenomenon, maybe even something in nature we've yet to discover. But still if it does turn out to be evidence of ET megastructures orbiting a star, I guess it would answer the Fermi Paradox. I should stress my money is on something natural, but who knows what might happen if radio telescope time is allocated.
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/

 

[BillJ]

Well I came across this story via one of my Facebook friends and found it fascinating. I imagine it will turn out to be some form of natural phenomenon, maybe even something in nature we've yet to discover. But still if it does turn out to be evidence of ET megastructures orbiting a star, I guess it would answer the Fermi Paradox. I should stress my money is on something natural, but who knows what might happen if radio telescope time is allocated.
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/

Interesting article.

And yet, there is this mess of objects circling it. A mess big enough to block a substantial number of photons that would have otherwise beamed into the tube of the Kepler Space Telescope. If blind nature deposited this mess around the star, it must have done so recently. Otherwise, it would be gone by now. Gravity would have consolidated it, or it would have been sucked into the star and swallowed, after a brief fiery splash.

But we may not be receiving the light from such an event, yet. The one piece of information that seemed to be missing from the story was how far the star is from us (unless I missed it).

 

[sojourner]

But we may not be receiving the light from such an event, yet. The one piece of information that seemed to be missing from the story was how far the star is from us (unless I missed it).

The distance of the star has no bearing on the timing required for the phenomena to be visible at just the right time from earth. A short life span is still short. The article just doesn't explain it that clearly.

 

[N-121973]

This article below lists the star in question as KIC 8462852 which according to Wikipedia is approximately 1482 light years away. So even if they are looking at some alien mega structure, who knows if the people who built it are still around or indeed if its still in orbit.
http://news.discovery.com/space/ali...-discovered-an-alien-megastructure-151014.htm
Also several British newspapers have picked up on the story though no sign of it on the BBC or CNN websites.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

If it were established that this is likely to be a megastructure (a big if), remember that Kepler's field of view is about a quarter of one percent of the night sky, monitoring the brightness of 145,000 stars. There are approximately 4 billion type F and G stars in our Galaxy alone. That's potentially 25,000 advanced civilizations. Of course, the error bars are huge on that estimate but it's unlikely that we just happened to point the KST in the right direction to locate the only example.

Of course, putting my sensible head on, Aunt Sally, the light signature might indicate either a new type of variable star or a load of occulting crap being perturbed toward the star by its companion star, which is 1000AU distant from it (if the reporting is correct).

 

[Autistoid]

If it were established that this is likely to be a megastructure (a big if), remember that Kepler's field of view is about a quarter of one percent of the night sky, monitoring the brightness of 145,000 stars. There are approximately 4 billion type F and G stars in our Galaxy alone. That's potentially 25,000 advanced civilizations. Of course, the error bars are huge on that estimate but it's unlikely that we just happened to point the KST in the right direction to locate the only example.

Of course, putting my sensible head on, Aunt Sally, the light signature might indicate either a new type of variable star or a load of occulting crap being perturbed toward the star by its companion star, which is 1000AU distant from it (if the reporting is correct).

Personally I like the fact that it's far enough away to have plausibility.

i.e. 1 civilization per 1000 cubed lightyears would seem right. I.e. why haven't we made contact with aliens, and yet the galaxy is not that barren.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I think you mean 1000 million cubic ly. 1000 cubic ly is a cube 10 ly on a side.

 

[scotthm]

i.e. 1 civilization per 1000 cubic lightyears would seem right.

I don't think so. Many civilizations have come and gone just on this one little planet.

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[Asbo Zaprudder]

The volume of the Galaxy is about 10^5 * pi * 2000 = 6 * 10^8 cubic ly approx divided by 25,000 is 24,000 cubic ly, which equates to a sphere with a radius of about 18 ly. So not so far perhaps.

Someone should measure if the star is producing significant excess radiation in the infra red.

ETA someone has -- there's apparently no excess.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...ge_dips_in_brightness_are_a_bit_baffling.html

 

[BillJ]

i.e. 1 civilization per 1000 cubic lightyears would seem right.

Why, in your educated opinion, would it seem "right"?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I guess Autistoid quoted that figure because KIC 8462852 is 1500 ly away.

Nice graphical spreadsheet for the Drake Equation on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120821-how-many-alien-worlds-exist

There's no entry for a Great Filter value, but it's simple enough to multiply by a number between 0 and 1.

As there's no infra red excess from KIC 8462852, perhaps they're already dead, Jim.

 

[Autistoid]

I think you mean 1000 million cubic ly. 1000 cubic ly is a cube 10 ly on a side.

(1000 lightyears)^3

 

[Autistoid]

i.e. 1 civilization per 1000 cubic lightyears would seem right.

Why, in your educated opinion, would it seem "right"?

Well for sake of the argument we used 2000 lightyears cubed as our number.

Assuming large parts of the galaxy are not good choices due to their age etc.

You do the math and you end up with a number with about a 1000 civilizations spread across the galaxy.

Many of which of course are easily exstinct etcera as this one could be.

It's obviously a low enough number that it seems highly reasonable they aren't knocking down our door.

At the same time a number significantly lower would sugguest were all alone.

So if there are advanced species out there, the distance seems resonable.


If it were 15 light years out, we all know the odds would be incredibly low that it was made by beings.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I think you mean 1000 million cubic ly. 1000 cubic ly is a cube 10 ly on a side.

(1000 lightyears)^3

Yeah, that's 1000 ly cubed, not 1000 cubic ly. You still need to show your calculation, though.

 

[publiusr]

I don't believe that. The universe trades infinity with chance, and with that much time and space, there has to be something out there.
RAMA

Well there are two ways to look at that: The univese is so large, you'd think we'd have company--and Fermi pops up.

But since you had to have a lot of failures to find that one soap nozzle--or that one smoker that worked--that means you have an infinity of wrong answers.

The result?

Successful life on Earth demands an empty universe, and Fermi is solved.

There are ways to look for alien craft
http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.03043

"so far--zippo"

Some links on the megastructure--most likely what an exo- Kuiper looks like on the outside, just in a different location:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/if-our-space-telescopes-imaged-alien.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/more-on-star-with-hundreds-of-transits.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/kepler-space-telescope-could-have.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/natural-possiblities-must-be-ruled-out.html
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...ge_dips_in_brightness_are_a_bit_baffling.html

Most interestingly http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.04606

Then too, it wouldn't take much to build a dyson swarm just there with everything already just so.

Wake me from hypersleep when we get there.

 

[N-121973]

Well, there must be something to this story, the BBC have finally reported it. There was a scientist interviewed about it on Radio 5Live. She doesn't say anything new and she did emphasise that it was unlikely aliens were responsible for the mega structure. A segment of her interview is up on the BBC website if anyone's interested. I just think that if the BBC are giving it coverage then there must be something going on.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035gmxp