NASA may have solved the mystery of the Dyson Sphere, star KIC 8462852

The "Dyson Sphere" mega structure, star KIC 8462852 is in the news again. The Kepler mission started monitoring the star back in 2009 and in 2011 and 2013, they observed two unusual incidents when the star's light dimmed very dramatically.
A new study, using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and lead by Massimo Marengo of Iowa State University, Ames, has found that the dramatic dimming that was observed in 2011and 2013 was caused by a swarm of comets travelling a very long and eccentric orbit around the star. Mr Marengo did concede that more observations of the star are needed to settle the case.

There was speculation about the star being an alien mega structure, so much so that SETI got involved:

In order to explore the idea that such a structure could have been built by intelligent alien life, the Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, Seti, trained its Allen Telescope Array on the star for more than two weeks.
Experts looked for two types of radio signal: narrow-band signals generated as a 'hailing signal' for alien societies wanting to announce their presence, and broad-band signals.
These signals would be produced by 'beamed propulsion'.
Seti said that if large scale alien engineering projects really are underway, the array would pick up signals made by intense microwave beams that could be used to power spacecraft.
Scientists analysing the data found no clear evidence for either type of signal.
They believe this rules out the presence of omnidirectional transmitters - large antenna - of approximately 100 times today's total terrestrial energy usage in the case of the narrow-band signals, and ten million times that usage for broad band emissions.
So the presence of a Dyson sphere is unlikely.
Seti scientists note that any society able to build such a megastructure would have access to energy at a level approaching 1027 watts, so that massive transmitters would be detected even if only a tiny percentage of this energy were used for signalling.

It sounds to me that although Massimo's team has come up with a plausible explanation, this is still going to be a very interesting one to watch...

Source

Interesting for sure... but this is just the same speculation.. .they already posited it could well be a swarm of natural objects, if I recall, but they still don't know for sure as nobody from Earth has seen it up close (as far as we know, bwaa-ha-ha).

And any pronouncements about what energy is or isn't used by possible extraterrestrial life is premature, at best, and should be amended with "as far as we know from where our tech level is now."

But still interesting!

a reply to: Baddogma

I agree absolutely. Statements like the one from SETI, always bring to mind the Black Swan Theory, in that what we don't know is often far more important than what we do know.

The first time I read the article, the following statement "pinged" with me:

Scientists analysing the data found no clear evidence for either type of signal.

Exactly what is "no clear evidence? Did they find something odd that wasn't clear?

swarm of comets.....my azz.......no one will buy that
there's no such thing as an aggregation of friggin COMETS....

they should have said ring of destroyed planet.......I would buy that one !!

Be honest! If they found that there are unnatural structures around it, do you think they would they tell us?
Nope!
They will only ever go as far as saying "We've seen something interesting" because that keeps the money flowing.

I knew it wouldn't be long before this story came out. If they really found evidence there may be a Dyson Sphere there, does anyone believe they would tell the world? No matter what...this was the only story we'd be hearing.

Small black hole in eccentric orbit around it? Maybe a Red Supergiant or dead star orbiting it?

originally posted by: Xeven
Small black hole in eccentric orbit around it? Maybe a Red Supergiant or dead star orbiting it?

a red super giant would not be so subtle. and it would be spectacularly visible. in fact if there was one there you could probably not resolve the other star or the dimming effect at all. CF; Betelguese.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

Dwarf...sorry

a reply to: meemaw

Pfft, my PC has access to greater than 1027 watts! Obviously that was a typo in the quoted material in the OP. I wonder if it was 10 to the 27th power watts? Now that's a (natural fertilizer) load of wattage!

nothing to see here!
*ufos flying in background*
there is absolutely nothing to see here! nasa is in full control, please move on!
*tripods coming out of interdimensional portals*

I actually think they raised more questions about it. From the articles I read, it sounds like the eliminated certain possibilities, e.g. its not an asteroid field. Now its limited to comets, or something more specific, but there still remains other possibilities.

Correct me if Im wrong. I read an article on it earlier today. Though it might just be comets. Who knows? That's fine if it is, but Ill wait until they are 100% certain before agreeing with that sentiment.

The fact they eliminated astroids from the possible explanations and have decreased the possibilities to "its either comets" or "i have no ducking idea" is actually a good thing if you are betting on a Dyson Swarm.

a reply to: GBP/JPY

Well now, while I would be amongst those who would desire more and better data before coming to a conclusion, stating that there is no such thing as an aggregation of comets is a statement which cannot be backed up without an extensive, and uncompromising cartographic examination of every single solar system and mass concentration in not just this galaxy, but all galaxies.

For all we know, sat here on Earth with only our telescopes and interferometry to guide us, we cannot make such bold statements as there is no such thing as this, or that, or the other. We can say that we have seen no evidence for a thing as of yet, but we cannot say that it does not exist, certainly not when we are referring to the possibility that some chunks of space rock might share a rough orbit around a star, or planetary body.

A recently broken planet could create a loosely associated herd of cometary material without too much of a flex of ones reasoning and imagination, so the idea that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for such a mob of space rocks to exist is unsupportable. It is possible, but yet unproven. That is the way I would look at it, in any case.

a reply to: VoidHawk

But they are telling us.

As in, it's one of the proposed ideas.

I'm not sure what more you want?

The blind, ignorant NASA hate is so immature.

okay, firstly, what is this new data that allows them to categorically state that it's comets [but yes we'll have to confirm that but no really it's comets honest]? Because as far as i was aware, the dimming was several magnitudes too bright for it to be comets, at least as we understand them, and we were simply lacking data to call it anything else..

and more importantly, what's up with that radio signal business? "we checked them out for an entire fortnight and they weren't beaming the x-files theme directly at us on our preferred frequency so clearly there is no intelligent life here"
uhh?

a reply to: meemaw

Or you could say that one solitary body placed in line between that sun (star) and our line of sight has partially blocked the radiations from that star. That explanation would save us from fantasying a mess of comets whizzing around at that place and occasionally blocking the view. It would also allow us to wonder if that the blocking body was set dead on a course toward our sun.

a reply to: Aliensun

Whatever is blocking it's light, is orbiting it, so how can something orbiting a star 1480 light years away be on a course towards our sun?

Even if it were, it would take thousands of years to reach it.

Who's really fantasising here?

a reply to: TrueBrit

However, that would place an aggregate of comets in roughly the same probability as an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, correct?

"Possible, but yet unproven."

Hopefully they'll actually have reasonable data to back the comet theory up if they decide to run with it, since while it is significantly more "mundane" the evidence required should be about on par as the ET option.

This new scientific paper reports that the Spitzer Space Telescope found no substantial dust around Tabby's Star. This confirms earlier findings, gotten by other means. The absence of dust makes a planetary collision very unlikely, as this would leave behind a great deal of dust.
It's said that disintegrating comets would leave less dust behind, but the situation at Tabby's Star is unprecedented. If the supposed comets were able to dim the star by up to 22 percent, it appears that there must have been a extraordinary amount of very dense dust. It seems that if comets were the cause of the star's dimming, that dust should still be detectable. In our own solar system, comets passing in front of the Sun produce barely any dimming at all.
A scenario is evoked, in which the comets are in highly eccentric orbits, which have carried them deep into space. This is supposed to have taken the dust too far from the star to be detected. This line of thinking appears to neglect the fact that comets shed their dust, leaving it behind them along their path through space. It still seems that if comets are involved in the star's dimming, that excess dust should have been detected.
The absence of dust, now confirmed, supports the possibility that far larger objects are responsible for the dips in the star's brightness. If comets, the one surviving, workable natural explanation is doubtful, we must more seriously consider the possibility of megastructures.

a reply to: meemaw

I would expect that any civilisation capable of designing and constructing a structure as complex and massive as Dyson's sphere would have given up using radio altogether, especially as a communications medium..at any energy levels.

I would imagine they would be millennia ahead of us, and have probably perfected Quantum theory and are living in a world of Quantum fact, and using quantum entanglement or as yet unknown variants of similar systems for instant communications anywhere, or indeed anytime.

It's highly unlikely we would detect any radio signals in this case, even those they may have used many millennia ago.