If this sun is old it may have begun it's conversion to a red giant. In this case they would want less energy rather than more. Young planets that were lacking in energy would not be likely to be able to build such alleged, large structures.

Perhaps we will find out more--but we may not.

I find the ET idea in this case to be highly unlikely, and that this will probably be able to be explained by natural occurrence.

The problem NOW is that the kind of people (outside of the research community) that this idea has been seeded into the minds of are going to blow it all out of proportion, and weave this story into their mind-bogglingly vast and intricately interconnected web of conspiracy theories.

This does make the dish time necessary, just to prove that it probably isn't ET. The hardcore ones won't even believe the followup unless it says it is actually ET now, and a natural explanation now actually reinforces their conspiracy theories saying that it is ET.

I support dish time for this project even if all it does is say it's a natural phenomena, if only just to shut up the majority of the crazies (except the hardcore ones, for whom such will only reinforce their belief that it is ET).

I believe it is stupid to believe that ET isn't out there, but if the theories surrounding this one prove true, Hawking is right, and we here on Earth should be VERY WARY of initiating contact with such a civilization, with such capabilities.

I find the ET theory on KIC 8462852 highly unlikely out of basic practicality. Even if we could do such "Dyson Swarms" of solar energy collectors, nobody in their right mind would allow the collected energy to be beamed to the Earth. If you can't grasp why, there is an easy to understand explanation in Futurama S05E01 "Crimes of the Hot" starting at about the 09:15 time mark. We would be rather stupid to think that such an advanced civilization has no freaking common sense, and would actually allow such energy transmission.

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some NEWS: https://www.facebook.com/SETIInstitute/photos/a.123276420534.133038.67487330534/10153636473020535/?type=3&theater
:D

If it's artificial then perhaps they also designed it to function as a literal semaphore, blocking the light of their star with a pattern of repeating shadows that form a signal as they orbit.
Just a thought.

great thought! ;)

Interesting that there were apparently no planets detected in orbit of this star. From what I read, essentially all stars are now believed to have planets. Further, in this case, such planets should probably have been detectable by the Kepler Space Telescope. We know that some sort of matter is moving around this star. Its planet-bearing plane seems to be nearly in line with Earth. The apparent absence of conspicuous planets may well be real. This would strengthen the supposition that such planets might have been converted into a partial Dyson Sphere.

we only see planets that cross their star...so they have to be aligned with our point of view in a few deg (depending of the star size)...

so NO, we can't say there's no planets there...'cause we don't know the plane of planets in that star system...'cause we can't measure the stars more accurately to see the equator of rotation...
;)

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

If a star has planets, it rotates around the barycenter of the system. So we see it oscillating even if the planets are not in our line of sight.
Tullio

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If a star has planets, it rotates around the barycenter of the system. So we see it oscillating even if the planets are not in our line of sight.
Tullio

yeah, only if it has Jovian type of planets around...for a Sun (if someone out there is looking at it), it's about 11+y for a Jupiter to come around...so long time to look!

Kepler was designed to search for "dimming of the Stars by a planet that passes in front of it"...that is it's primary mission!
;)

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

I believe it is stupid to believe that ET isn't out there, but if the theories surrounding this one prove true, Hawking is right, and we here on Earth should be VERY WARY of initiating contact with such a civilization, with such capabilities.

The "crazies" all believe - without a shred of evidence - that an ETI could be a threat because they might have FTL capability, but building a structure around a star doesn't require FTL travel or even imply it's existence.
So why do you think we should be wary of anyone who would need more than a half million years to get here?

I believe it is stupid to believe that ET isn't out there, but if the theories surrounding this one prove true, Hawking is right, and we here on Earth should be VERY WARY of initiating contact with such a civilization, with such capabilities.

The "crazies" all believe - without a shred of evidence - that an ETI could be a threat because they might have FTL capability, but building a structure around a star doesn't require FTL travel or even imply it's existence.
So why do you think we should be wary of anyone who would need more than a half million years to get here?

Ask Stephen Hawking. He makes a bit of sense on the topic.

I think this whole idea is rather absurd too, but let's entertain the scenarios of such a theorized civilization. Enough Dysonian technology to block out 80% of the light from a star? How much energy did that take? How much material did that take? Where did it come from? How was it refined? How many were involved in building it, and for how long? And lastly, WTF does any civilization need that much energy for?

For energy, there are many other more practical means of obtaining it. It's estimated that using direct current Fusion techniques lacking any form of neutron activation, 100-150 tons of 3He can power the entire Earth for one year. That's about the size of or a little lighter than one single coal train. When options like that exist, Dyson looks like the idiot, as do those proposing rather absurdly sized "Dyson Swarms" of solar collectors, etc...

But, entertaining the theory being laid out, such as in "The Atlantic", Let's entertain some other theories as well, as to if they have discovered other means of travel, and a way to keep from being turned into a plasma by collisions with junk, and can actually travel long distances. Word is that this system in question doesn't actually have any detected planets. If they can travel somewhere, build such shit, and somehow evade the normal problems such as the inverse of the square of the distance attenuating the collected energy to the point of being completely wasted effort....

Surveillance would be in order to determine the entire nature of such a civilization before initiating contact. Maybe all of the methed-out drunk crazy rednecks in Moose Turd Montana are right and they could be coming here to stick things up redneck butts, and choosing to carry on the genetic superiority of such intellectual giants as Nancy Leider by knocking such intellectually acute women up.

No, I think people need to mellow out, and in many cases, take their Thorazine.

What we have here is some kind of natural phenomena. It's just common sense.

We are more likely to find some civilization at or near our level of technology than we are some absurd shit like has been proposed in this instance, and even then, before they discover what massive numbers of low power psk channels can do for them. Look at what Earth's evolving transition to digital modulation is doing to Earth's signal strength. Our signal strength is dropping rapidly. It could be that forms of RADAR will be more practical to search for, as those would be used pretty much in perpetuity by any civilization discovering it. It's hard to replace.

Of course, maybe the crazies are right. Entertaining the present theory for instance, we probably won't have to worry, as the laws of physics state plainly that such collected energy would by useless to a different solar system, and the lack of planets would simply indicate that their crazies convinced their leaders to allow that energy to be transmitted to their planet... Ooops.. What planet? Maybe all of that energy vaporized their planet through a simple command and control loss of the collectors and power transmission....After all, such a system would have to have the most amazing impossibly high levels of fault tolerance. "WERNSTROM!!!!!"

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Dyson's Folly, as illustrated by "Futurama", S05E01 "The Crimes of the Hot" (2002):










Loss of command and control....

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i think there's more chances that there's a natural explanation rather than an artificial one, but i'd like to dream. so many times astronomers have found something new they've never seen before, only to figure out what it is. maybe it's some kind of celestial body that we've never seen before, or maybe clumps of matter acting in a way previous unknown. huge fragments of a dead star or failed star, or maybe they are a swarm of world sized platforms kind of like ringworld or halo built by a civilization trying to escape the expansion of their sun.

We agree on much. Speculating on what different levels of advanced civilizations might be capable of isn't a total waste of time, but this kind of mega-engineering explanation reminds me of Geraldo digging up Al Capone's "secret vault".
I don't agree with Hawking, however. I think that if anyone out there wants our planet and has the means to get here they're already on their way - they would have been aware of Earth long before they were aware of us, and sending either an invitation to visit or a No Vacancy notice would make no difference.

It would be interesting if it is a star on the verge of transition into a Red Giant. Firsthand observation of how a yellow star dies, well, at least the first stage of that death, long-term observation would be in order.

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Delidded i7-4790K (CLU/CLU) at 4.7GHz @ 1.310Vcore 24/7, 32GB DDR3-2400, Corsair H100i v2, Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK, MSI Radeon RX 480 Gaming 4G, HX-650 PSU, Corsair 750D

We agree on much. Speculating on what different levels of advanced civilizations might be capable of isn't a total waste of time, but this kind of mega-engineering explanation reminds me of Geraldo digging up Al Capone's "secret vault".
I don't agree with Hawking, however. I think that if anyone out there wants our planet and has the means to get here they're already on their way - they would have been aware of Earth long before they were aware of us, and sending either an invitation to visit or a No Vacancy notice would make no difference.

Actually, it's a fun exercise, but we do need to use some common sense. I'd like to know more about them before we openly say "Hey there!".


"Wanna come over to my place for dinner? [Hmmm... Maybe with sautéed onions, and a bottle of their Chianti?]"

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Delidded i7-4790K (CLU/CLU) at 4.7GHz @ 1.310Vcore 24/7, 32GB DDR3-2400, Corsair H100i v2, Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK, MSI Radeon RX 480 Gaming 4G, HX-650 PSU, Corsair 750D

Actually, it's a fun exercise, but we do need to use some common sense. I'd like to know more about them before we openly say "Hey there!".

Here's a hypothetical for you.
In another post I suggested the possibility of a network of relays parked in interstellar space. Let's suppose we find evidence that something like that might be close by, within a light year or less, and the best way we have of verifying would be to fire a coherent light at that location and wait for a reflection. There could be nothing there - it might be an anomaly of some kind - or it could be a machine that only responds to coherent light, and we don't know if it's going to ask for 100 credits for the next 5 minutes or alert the fleet that a new target has been acquired, or simply point a channel in our direction and start sharing everything it's carrying from everyone else out there. What do we do?
I think that if we didn't go ahead and do it then we might as well crawl back in our caves and forget the whole thing.

OK, my guess is that, over 90 percent it is natural. Thinking it is intelligent made though is WAY more fun. It is 1500 LY away. Assuming we find a way to communicate with them then we are talking 3000 years in the future, assuming they don't have FTL tech. Lets hope we have know what to do by then.

Going back to this Dyson sphere or Dyson ring (I like ring better). Is it possible to build this ring 10 or 15 percent off the solar plane so it would not interfere with the sunlight that shines on the planet. Maybe even less 2 or 4 percent, I am not sure how much it would have to be off to still allow sunlight to reach a planet. Assuming that they are getting a LOT of material there to create this ring it would look like what Kepler has seen. All this material would mask any planets in the solar plane.

I don't know how they would be able prove this, hopefully people are way smarter than I am.

My two cents, 2 pesos, 2 pence... etc ..etc

Bob

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Sometimes I wonder, what happened to all the people I gave directions to?
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SETI@home classic workunits 4,321
SETI@home classic CPU time 22,169 hours

what is interesting for me is that they wouldn't know about us at least for another 1400LY (if they pick up our radio signals)...so we have a time to find out more about "them" & prepare... ;)

so, lets take this EASY...we have time on our hand!
we're still "invisible" to them...
;)

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

lets send a message beamed at them and tell them where we are. In 3000 years we will know if we reached an intelligent civilization 1500 years ago.

Only one natural, astrophysical explanation for the extraordinary dimming of the star KIC 8462852 was found to be scientifically reasonable. That is the disintegration of comets, possibly drawn in by the gravity of an intruding star as it passed near. It is maintained that the dust and gas from these comets would dim the light of the star as it passed between it and the Kepler Space Telescope.
There would have to be a great deal of dust to dim the light of the star by up to 22 percent. Such dust would absorb and scatter much of the visible light of the star and turn it to infra-red. Unfortunately for the cometary scenario, though, is this observational fact: Such infra-red radiation was carefully looked for. It was not found.
The improbability of the last remaining natural explanation suggested, quite reasonably, another possibility. That possibility is that the light of this star is dimmed by artificial structures, established in orbit by an advanced civilization in space.

This linked article, below, reports that the SETI Institute has begun to use the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California to monitor the star KIC 8462852 for intelligent radio signals.

http://www.space.com/30855-alien-life-search-kepler-megastructure.html

wow so quickly, in another article they said the initial seti survey was going to be in January 2016. maybe it got moved earlier with all the media hype. would be nice to get some real-time updates here in the forum :( but maybe the forums might be under scrutiny after all the attention, and if it turns out to be a "mundane" phenomenon, it might hurt seti's mission to have the public being disappointed.

This linked article, below, reports that the SETI Institute has begun to use the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California to monitor the star KIC 8462852 for intelligent radio signals.

http://www.space.com/30855-alien-life-search-kepler-megastructure.html

Fantastic. Nice to know there's intelligent life in the SETI program, at least, even if we do strike out on this one.