Scientists have spotted a 'vanishing' star they think could be evidence of aliens

You will have to forgive the click-bait title, but this is how it appears in the title of article I am referencing.

www.sciencealert.com...

Perhaps the first paragraph better represents the findings by the scientists.

Vanishing stars that 'disappear' suddenly from the night sky without any scientific explanation could help us find extraterrestrial life, scientists have suggested.

Researchers in Sweden have already identified one such 'vanishing' star, and while they're not sure what made it disappear from the view of our telescopes just yet, the absence of any astrophysical explanation means extraterrestrial intervention can't be ruled out.

Stars coming and going is part of the natural flow of the Universe (our own Sun has a few billion years of life left yet), but by studying space surveys taken just a few years apart, the team wants to see if any stars appear to suddenly drop out of the sky in unusual ways.

It seems that they have spotted a potential candidate.

From this data, they found one possible candidate: a star that appears to have vanished, after taking into account potential technical errors and the natural movements of objects in the Universe.

Lead researcher Beatriz Villarroel and her colleagues say there's still a lot more work to do before they can confirm for sure that this star has vanished from view, and are working on getting larger samples and more sensitive telescopes to confirm what's actually going on.

Still, scientists have long wondered about advanced alien technology such as Dyson spheres - massive structures that could surround stars and then suck energy from them. That's one hypothetical way that a star could be missing from one sky survey to the next.

A more scientific explanation could be that bright galaxy centres called quasars are known to switch off in a matter of hundreds of days – though we're not exactly sure why. These quasars are powered by supermassive black holes, sucking in huge volumes of gas and dust more rapidly than normal, and they could account for some bright spots suddenly disappearing between official surveys.

I suspect it's unlikely this star was removed by aliens, but it's a big universe, and who knows for sure? Like KIC 8462852, the star that may have been (but doesn't appear to be) a Dyson sphere, it can certainly help advance our knowledge of the cosmos.

As the articles says;

As the search continues, though, we should probably be prepared for a few more false alarms before any contact with aliens is made... if we ever get that far.

A more scientific explanation could be that bright galaxy centres called quasars are known to switch off in a matter of hundreds of days – though we're not exactly sure why. These quasars are powered by supermassive black holes, sucking in huge volumes of gas and dust more rapidly than normal, and they could account for some bright spots suddenly disappearing between official surveys.

so they have actual scientific models they can follow but decide to sensationalize what could be a natural phenomenon.

I don't know why scientists have been making these wild suggestions about 'advanced' beings...

if you're going to use scientific methods to research a potentially new finding, as scientists, they should not be going in with a bias. because your results will most likely reflect that bias. and this where data becomes scrutinized, and eventually dismissed by their peer reviews.

Frankly, if an alien civilisation can make a star disappear, then they probably already know who we are.

I found a pic of a vanished star

a reply to: cuckooold

I saw one. I am a casual astronomer.. was staring up at a very bight star and it just "went out".

The chances of me seeing a supernova would be astronomical. There is no way of really knowing why it vanished but thinking I may have seen a star die is pretty cool given I exist for a micro second of it's light life and it would have actually died many generations before I even existed.

Why is it always aliens ? Why not in this case a piece of our space junk passed in front of the star ?

originally posted by: odzeandennz
so they have actual scientific models they can follow but decide to sensationalize what could be a natural phenomenon.

I don't know why scientists have been making these wild suggestions about 'advanced' beings...

The question is whether this speculation is coming from scientists, or the media site like this one. My money's on the latter. Scientists don't normally come up with sensationalist headlines and pure speculation; they're usually more careful and more precise than that.

I also notice that the article is based on an arxiv paper. Anyone can post any kind of speculation or hypothesis on arxiv, but until it becomes a proper peer-reviewed science paper, we shouldn't give it much weight.

Maybe half the stars are already dead !and we're just getting the end of the universe credits .

originally posted by: Dumbass
I found a pic of a vanished star

I think you got the wrong picture thats a black hole. Though I can understand your confusion.

originally posted by: Gothmog
Why is it always aliens ? Why not in this case a piece of our space junk passed in front of the star ?

Because they have to take into account the mother ship circling earth. But luckily doesn't block out view to long. I find it funny how people think we could spot an alien civilization the galaxy is huge even if they exist odds are pretty low we could detect them short of them landing at the white house.

originally posted by: SprocketUK
Frankly, if an alien civilisation can make a star disappear, then they probably already know who we are.

Maybe they're just using it for energy?

I've read and seen scientists making speculations like this, but normally they're pretty sensible. They just say, "that would be really cool, and here is what we would expect to see. It's probably not that though."

originally posted by: SprocketUK
Frankly, if an alien civilisation can make a star disappear, then they probably already know who we are.

Not necessarily. We don't throw off any long-range clues that we are here. So unless they were actively looking for us, chances are they have no clue that we exist. Not to mention that star is still a fair distance off from us, Meaning there is certainly a delay in the image reaching us.

Perhaps a cloud of dust obscuring view?

a reply to: Denoli

Considering the millions of years it takes for the light of a distant star to travel and be visible to observers on earth, you're probably correct.

a reply to: SprocketUK

We don't even know who we are.
Bigger real worry I'd think is the black hole that eats stars.

a reply to: TonyS

There is evidence when a star dies. Explosions or collapse leave a trace. It says in the article that the expected evidence wasn't there. Strange.
I'm for a completely natural reason but this is interesting.
I'm not usually in alien threads.

a reply to: riley

I'm thinking that a star blinking out that's visible from earth would have been noticed by someone's other than you. Not saying you didn't see something of course. It probably wasn't the death of a star.
And if you can see the star you'd see the supernova and it would be evidenced for days or possibly weeks afterward.
We may get to witness the death of a star ourselves.
Betelgeuse a bright star in Orion is dying and will be quite a show when it does.
It's just a question of when. Apparently any time between now and a million years from now. Patient???

earthsky.org...

a reply to: dragonridr

I thought this was the space between a teenagers ears. Oh relax I'm kidding.
There's no video game or Facebook memories.

That photo is stunning to say the least.

Whatever we are inside of (we call universe) is absolutely beautiful and magnificent in all its entirety.

Being alive within this ... thing, is amazing!

If only we focused on the beauty and gift nature has provided via the universe itself, look to progress and advance AS ONE SPECIES, this world would be harmonic again.

When I see photos of space like this, it's a breath of fresh air given all the division, aggression, deceit, and chaos happening within the consciousness of our species.

I wish it would stop and people could just look up together, and understand they, as individuals, are collectivity in this universe together.

A micro being within a macro. Did hate and division create/manifest the universe?

Certainly not. Thanks for sharing the op and that photo, new desktop background!

RUH ROH, Shaggy

IT'S THE PRIMES