October 20, 2015 at 01:46The search for an alien mind near a strange blinking star has begun
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Remember the star KIC 8462852? Hypothetically, the strange behavior of this star may be due to the presence of some “alien megaconstructions” next to it.
So, the search began for signs of intelligent life in this mysterious star system!
NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has discovered that KIC 8462852 has been weird several times and has blinked sharply over the past few years. According to the researchers, these changes in brightness were so significant that they cannot be explained by a planet that overlaps the star’s disk. Also other possible explanations, such as huge clouds of dust, cannot explain the observed effects without contradictions.
from a translator: please send errors / typos in PM.
Astronomers have begun using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a dish antenna system approximately 483 kilometers (300 miles) north of San Francisco, to hunt for signals from KIC 8462852 , a star located at a distance of 1480 light years from Earth.
At the moment, the main theory is the assumption of a swarm of comets that can be worn around KIC 8462852, possibly after a gravitational kick from another star flying nearby. But astronomers say that perhaps the data obtained by the Kepler telescope are explained by the gigantic constructions of an alien civilization: for example, a huge number of solar panels.
This assumption aimed at KIC 8462852 scientists looking for signals that could be caused by an alien mind.
Seth Shostak [ Seth Shostak ], a senior astronomer at the project SETI ( «Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence") in Mountain View, California, said the portal Space.com :
Shostak cited pulsars as examples — rapidly spinning superdense remnants of stars that emit high-energy radiation streams. This radiation is observed in the region of the Earth as periodic pulses, because they can only be detected when released strictly in the direction of our planet. Such events occur at predictable intervals, which are due to the rotation of the pulsars.
Now astronomers know all this, but in the 1960s, when the signals of the first pulsar were discovered, some scientists explained them as possible signals of aliens.
About the riddle KIC 8462852 Shostak added:
But, until such an explanation is found, the theory of intelligent aliens will hang in the air, even if ATA and other tools do not find anything. The absence of observed signals will not mean that there is no life in the KIC 8462852 system.
For example, that star may have life forms that do not emit signals that we can detect. Or there could once exist a civilization that has now become extinct, leaving an unusual megaconstruction as a monument.
The primary goal of the Kepler mission — finding planets — suggests that the Milky Way contains billions of solid, potentially inhabited worlds. So, KIC 8462852 is far from the only candidate that Shostak and his colleagues will check in the coming years.
Shostak added:
So, the search began for signs of intelligent life in this mysterious star system!
In previous series
NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has discovered that KIC 8462852 has been weird several times and has blinked sharply over the past few years. According to the researchers, these changes in brightness were so significant that they cannot be explained by a planet that overlaps the star’s disk. Also other possible explanations, such as huge clouds of dust, cannot explain the observed effects without contradictions.
from a translator: please send errors / typos in PM.
Super, so what's up with the aliens?
Astronomers have begun using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a dish antenna system approximately 483 kilometers (300 miles) north of San Francisco, to hunt for signals from KIC 8462852 , a star located at a distance of 1480 light years from Earth.
At the moment, the main theory is the assumption of a swarm of comets that can be worn around KIC 8462852, possibly after a gravitational kick from another star flying nearby. But astronomers say that perhaps the data obtained by the Kepler telescope are explained by the gigantic constructions of an alien civilization: for example, a huge number of solar panels.
This assumption aimed at KIC 8462852 scientists looking for signals that could be caused by an alien mind.
Seth Shostak [ Seth Shostak ], a senior astronomer at the project SETI ( «Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence") in Mountain View, California, said the portal Space.com :
We observe it [the star] with the help of the Allen Antenna Array. This is not a problem, we must do this for sure. But people should be enthusiastic, as history teaches us.
Shostak cited pulsars as examples — rapidly spinning superdense remnants of stars that emit high-energy radiation streams. This radiation is observed in the region of the Earth as periodic pulses, because they can only be detected when released strictly in the direction of our planet. Such events occur at predictable intervals, which are due to the rotation of the pulsars.
Now astronomers know all this, but in the 1960s, when the signals of the first pulsar were discovered, some scientists explained them as possible signals of aliens.
About the riddle KIC 8462852 Shostak added:
So, history offers us to find an explanation for this, not related to the Klingons .
But, until such an explanation is found, the theory of intelligent aliens will hang in the air, even if ATA and other tools do not find anything. The absence of observed signals will not mean that there is no life in the KIC 8462852 system.
For example, that star may have life forms that do not emit signals that we can detect. Or there could once exist a civilization that has now become extinct, leaving an unusual megaconstruction as a monument.
The primary goal of the Kepler mission — finding planets — suggests that the Milky Way contains billions of solid, potentially inhabited worlds. So, KIC 8462852 is far from the only candidate that Shostak and his colleagues will check in the coming years.
Shostak added:
It doesn't really matter where the telescope is pointing, because planets are everywhere. If at least someone is there, then there should be so many of them that I think we have every chance.