The merged and improved (?) KIC 8462852 thread

[Dryson]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

It 's relatively simple to detect the gravitational effects of other massive bodies in the system by measuring any Doppler shift variation. I imagine that will be one among several possibilities investigated. However, a black hole close enough to seriously tidally disturb the shape of a star would likely pull material off it and we would see X-ray emission from the accretion disk. That's another region of the EM spectrum to investigate.

The reason I ask about Kepler is because it discovered the following taking place elsewhere as well.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=915854085129743&id=118399218208571
Could both occurrences taking place be on the fringe of the closest black hole to us that might be moving closer to the Earth?

"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." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

And, to answer your question -- if a black hole were affecting both WD 1145+017 and KIC 8462852, 570 ly and 1480 ly distant respectively, it would have been discovered already by its gravitational effects on the other stars in the vicinity.

Just like you said and quoting Dan Truman from Armageddon....."Its a big ass sky."

I would think if Kepler trained its instruments between the two points I referenced above maybe they would find more disturbances .

So what we have so far is this:

1.Swarm of Comets
2.Big Ass Asteroid or asteroids
3.Odd shaped sun

Three rather good possibilities

4.Alien Megastructure
5.The very fringe of a black hole that is millions of light years away and is effecting local solar systems.

Two possibilities.

It has to be one of the five above or a combination of any of the five above.

 

[RoJoHen]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

Can stars have rings? Or would that fall into the "swarm of asteroid" theory?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

The form of the time series doesn't suggest any of options 1, 2, 3, or 5 as being likely to me. There are other options -- new type of variable star, instrument error, data-downlink error, data-storage error, data-processing error... Remember when people were getting all excited about apparently faster-than-light neutrinos a couple of years ago. That turned out to be caused by a loose cable and a respected Physicist, who recommended caution, didn't have to eat his boxer shorts.

ETA: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1510.04606v1.pdf is worth reading for its discussion of the time series and how it might be analysed.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

It has to be one of the five above or a combination of any of the five above.

No it doesn't.

It could be something we haven't thought of/don't yet understand. Often discoveries surprise us. You should know that by now.

 

[Silvercrest]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

And, to answer your question -- if a black hole were affecting both WD 1145+017 and KIC 8462852, 570 ly and 1480 ly distant respectively, it would have been discovered already by its gravitational effects on the other stars in the vicinity.

5.The very fringe of a black hole that is millions of light years away and is effecting local solar systems.

A black hole hundreds of light-years away is implausible, so you suggest that it's millions of light-years away instead? Do you even know what any of these terms mean?

Never mind, I know the answer.

It could be something we haven't thought of/don't yet understand. Often discoveries surprise us. You should know that by now.

One has to be able to accept input before one can be surprised.

 

[Dryson]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

http://m.space.com/30948-dimming-star-alien-megastructure-mystery.html

With a drop in as much as 22% brightness something large is moving in front of it.

Or could we be seeing the sun collapsing on itself similar to how a sun collapses reason right before a black hole forms?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

Stars such as the Sun and KIC 8462852 aren't massive enough to form black holes or even neutron stars. They end up as white dwarfs. I suggest we wait for more data to come in. Armchair speculation has some entertainment value but it won't get the pigs in.

 

[Dryson]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

Pretty sure the "recent planetary collision/break-up" idea has already been discounted since the IR reading don't support it (the rocks from such an impact would still be glowing with heat and apparently these are cold.)

The most likely scenario so far proposed is that a recent close approach from a neighbouring star has churned up it's outer cometary debris, sending a whole swarm of large objects in-system. However the problem with that is that it is (quite literally) and astronomical coincidence that we just happen to catch the event in the relatively tight time frame on which this would occur.

The really interesting possibility for me is that this is some new astrological phenomena that we've yet to even theorise. After all, nobody ever thought up highly magnetized, rapidly oscillating neutron stars until a radio telescope picked up one's radiowaves and named it a pulsar. Which incidentally, was also suggested to be of artificial origin due to the regular as clockwork radio pulses of immense power.

Sure, alien mega-structures would be more exciting, but it'd need some very substantial proof if such was the case. At the same time though, until they get more data on that system, it's going to be hard to categorically disprove too.

If this were true then where is the trajectory of the sun that passed close to the system to stir up the outer cometary debris? If there is a rogue sun that passed close to KIC causing all of the problems?

Where is it?

 

[Dryson]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

A couple of blogs by Jason Wright from the University of Pennsylvania regarding KIC.

http://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/

Some are saying the unusual activity around KIC is because of a star that passed to close to the outer portion of the solar system and stirred up the cometary debris.
First off where is that star that stirred up the cometary debris? It should be relatively easy to find if it is in fact a rogue star.

Secondly with outer cometary debris being stirred up isn't that a good chance that solar system might contain a habitable planet or two? Earth is surrounded by the Oort Cloud that has thousands of chunks frozen ice water and cometary capable objects. Perhaps what we are seeing is what it would look like from the outside in looking at a solar system similar to our own.

Still....where is that rogue star?

 

[Dryson]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

KIC - Gravity Darkening

Has anyone ever heard of gravity darkening?

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=34297

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

Please read http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.03622v1.pdf and http://arxiv.org/pdf/1510.04606v1.pdf.

From the former paper:

In this work we examine the full 4 years of Kepler observations of KIC 8462852 as well as supplemental information provided by additional ground- and space-based observations. In Section 2, we characterize KIC 8462852 using Kepler photometry, spectroscopic analysis, AO imaging, and spectral energy distribution analysis. We discover a wide M-dwarf companion to the system and argue that with the data sets we have in-hand, we can exclude the presence of an additional gravitationally bound companion nearby. In Section 4, we visit possible explanations for the peculiar observations of KIC 8462852, including instrumental artifacts, intrinsic/extrinsic variability, and a variety of scenarios invoking light-blocking events. In Section 5, we conclude by discussing future observations needed to constrain the nature of the object.

Some of the authors have also previously studied gravity darkening and so are aware of that possibility.

From the latter paper:

The dominant effect of a non-disk-like stellar aspect on transit light curves is to potentially generate an anomalous transit duration; the effects on ingress and egress shape are small. Gravity darkening, which makes the lower-gravity portions of the stellar disk dimmer than the other parts, can have a large effect on the transit curves of planets and stars with large spin-orbit misalignment, potentially producing transit light curves with large asymmetries and other in-transit features (first seen in the KOI-13 system, Barnes 2009; Barnes et al. 2011).

However, the magnitude of the two large dips in intensity is not explained by invoking gravity darkening.

 

[Dryson]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...entists-talking-about-an-alien-megastructure/


If you look at the object in the article it has several large holes in it structure. If a similar structure were passing across the surface of KIC and was very large then the solid parts of the structure would block the sun light out while the holed areas would allow the light in.

Maybe what is being viewed is a new type of asteroid that developed like a tree branch where the solid branch portion is blocking out the sun for a time.


I really don't think that a rogue star passing through is what caused the problem. KIC has been locked at for the past ten years and in that time if a rogue star did cause cometary debris to kick up I think that rogue star would have been found by now.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

I think it's probably Tiny Clanger and the Iron Chicken playing space tennis.

 

[sojourner]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

If you look at the object in the article it has several large holes in it structure. If a similar structure were passing across the surface of KIC and was very large then the solid parts of the structure would block the sun light out while the holed areas would allow the light in.

Maybe what is being viewed is a new type of asteroid that developed like a tree branch where the solid branch portion is blocking out the sun for a time.

By definition of what an asteroid is it cannot be an asteroid. Stop calling whatever fictional planetary body you are talking about an asteroid. A single asteroid would be too small to cause an occlusion that could be detected.

 

[Silvercrest]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

But they had one in both "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact". That validates the theory. Validates it, I tell you! Scientifically!

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

At least no one's mentioned Nibiru yet, thank Zarathushtra.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

Another article I think on the same thing.

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?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

If we had a mile wide radio telescope in orbit would that benefit study of this more?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

Asteroids are too small to explain the observations as are planets and even brown dwarfs. The swarm of comets is a heck of a stretch as well. I think it'll take quite a few more years worth of observations to tie down what's happening.

Free trip with aliens: only if they made it clear what they meant if they promised to serve man...

Big-ass radio telescope: better than long-base interferometers as you'd need gather more photons rather than increase resolution.

What would be nice would be multiple solar gravitational imaging telescopes at a distance of 550 AU or greater. The technique becomes more tractable f you have a white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole handy nearby.

 

[Dryson]

Re: Has Kepler Discovered An Alien Megastructure?

Space is massive and there are things that we don't even know about yet such as the hole in the Universe where not even normal matter that we know about and have discovered exists.

No one here is a scientist so there is no reputation lost for discussing issues that are based on real life science.


With that in mind I realized something with this discovery. If its not an alien mega structure the fact is that the stars dimming in brightest attracted NASA like moths to the bug zapper.

A dim in brightness that could be used to communicate with or serve as a beacon to other species of life in the Universe.

How the beacon would work is rather simple. A large enough array would be positioned at a distance from the sun where the reflected light would be noticeable as an odd light emission pattern as the reflector array itself would turn its reflector panels in such a way that the halo created around the sun would dim and then brighten. A species such as ourselves would notice this halo dimming and brightening as not being normal thus bringing our attention to the sun for further investigation.

Or even simpler would be to position the array like an ear on the side of the sun where it could reflect the sun light of the sun in 180 degree x 180 degree arcs. As the array turns away from the sun the reflection would be less and then greater as it aligned with the sun to reflect the most light and the less again.

To understand this idea all you need is a flash light and darkness. Have a friend with a flash light stand at about 50 yards from you and slowly move the flashlight back and forth in a 180 degree arc. The light will go from being very luminous at 0 degree to almost zero luminosity at 180 degrees.

Now if there were three of these arrays situated around the sun the effect would be tripled.

Interstellar communication is slow by light speed velocities so a alien species might never receive a signal from us so why try?

That is utter nonsense because we can use the sun to send a message at the speed of light by causing the suns reflection to dim and brighten. It might take 1500 years to reach KIC but it would still reach KIC or any other planet that might be watching and looking at the Sun's of other solar systems.