
The Most Mysterious Star in Our Galaxy - hvs
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/?single_page=true
======
xlm1717
The article dismisses natural explanations as "wanting", but then goes on to
dedicate half the article to aliens?

It claims that another star having a close encounter with KIC 8462852 (the
star discussed in the article) and stirring up its comet cloud "would be an
extraordinary coincidence". There is, in fact, evidence that such an encounter
happened in our own solar system, "only a few millennia before humans
developed the tech to loft a telescope into space." Calculating the speed and
trajectory of a particular star, astronomers found that it would have crossed
within the radius of the Oort Cloud approximately 70,000 years ago, producing
exactly the scenario that "would be an extraordinary coincidence."[1]

Additionally, astronomers have checked stars in the galaxy for the possibility
of a close encounter with our solar system, and find dozens of such candidates
to come close to our solar system, sometimes within the radius of the Oort
cloud, within the next million years (some as close as 240,000-470,000 years
from now).[2]

The idea that a passing star would stir up the comet cloud of KIC 8462852
should not be dismissed as a coincidence, especially not to give leeway to
discuss the potential for intelligence to build megastructures, when we see
that such a coincidence is not even that rare for our own solar system.

[1]
[http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/800/1/L1...](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/800/1/L17/meta;jsessionid=6790524B4362615599182851A33352EC.c1)

[2]
[http://www.mpia.de/~calj/stellar_encounters/stellar_encounte...](http://www.mpia.de/~calj/stellar_encounters/stellar_encounters_1.html)

~~~
an_ko
It sounds like you've concluded that because comet-cloud stirring happened in
_our solar system_ , it is "not even that rare" elsewhere. What's special
about ours? Intelligent life also happened in our solar system, but you seem
to consider it unlikely elsewhere.

It seems hasty to extrapolate either way without more data.

~~~
krylon
> Intelligent life also happened in our solar system, but you seem to consider
> it unlikely elsewhere.

Occam's razor, plain and simple.

If the strange variations in that star's brightness turned out to be caused by
an alien civilization, that would be way, way cool. But before we jump to
conclusions, we should explore more mundane explanations; given the unusual
observations, it should still be very interesting, whatever the cause.

~~~
vectorjohn
Nobody, not the article or any of the comments, seem to have jumped to any
conclusions.

The article suggested possibilities, including comets. And reasons why it
might not be that. And it included aliens, and some things that would be
expected if it was that. All depending on more data which the article
explained, they are waiting to collect.

------
berkeleynerd
I'm not sure we should expect only cold, sterile data and the most banal
hypothesis from a magazine targeting the general public.

Moreover, I think it's good to spark the public's imagination through informed
speculation. Yes, maybe what lies over the horizon is not a mysterious land
full of strange wonders but -- you know what? -- maybe it is. So to all those
out there who feel it is their duty to defend the orthodoxy that we're alone
in the universe from the human imagination I say just let others have their
dreams. One day you may live in a very different, more wondrous world because
they refused to accept the limits you seem so eager to impose on them.

------
joeyspn
And here a somewhat more mundane anti-clickbait article...

"Citizen scientists catch cloud of comets orbiting distant star"

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28191-citizen-
scienti...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28191-citizen-scientists-
catch-cloud-of-comets-orbiting-distant-star/)

------
yk
[http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.03622](http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.03622)

The paper. Basically Kepler, or to be more precise the Planet Hunter
crowdsourcing effort, found a star with a rather strange light curve and the
Atlantic jumped the gun and babbels of aliens.

~~~
yarou
While they are prematurely speculating about intelligent life, it certainly
warrants further investigation. Given that the Atlantic's target audience is
lay-people, of course they would play up the "extraterrestrial" hypothesis,
because that's how they grab readers' attention.

~~~
yk
Well, there are a lot of stars and some fraction has anomalous light curves in
one respect or another. I am not against investigating, but I believe that
overhyping science does more harm than good.

------
StreakyCobra
«But that would be an extraordinary coincidence, if that happened so recently,
only a few millennia before humans developed the tech to loft a telescope into
space. That’s a narrow band of time, cosmically speaking.

After all, this light pattern doesn’t show up anywhere else, across 150,000
stars. We know that something strange is going on out there.»

It would also be an extraordinary coincidence if we find another planet with
life on it, so quickly after humans started to look for it. 150'000 stars is a
narrow band of universe, cosmically speaking.

~~~
david-given
If this _is_ life, in a life-as-we-know-it sense, then it tells us that there
are two species within a couple of thousand light years in about the same
stage of evolution; which suggests that life's going to be _everywhere_.

Assuming one civilisation within a sphere 1000ly in diameter, that makes 16000
in our galaxy alone!

~~~
cstross
_If this is life, in a life-as-we-know-it sense_

It's much weirder than that; after all, there's been life on Earth for at
least 3Bn years, but space-going life for only the past 57 of them! Stack it
all up: if this _is_ some sort of life-created megastructure then it's not
just evidence of life, but of presumptively-multicellular tool-building life
that can get off its planet and survive in an intensely hostile environment
that it didn't coevolve with.

With an estimated 100Bn stars in our own galaxy alone, this would suggest we
can expect to see on the order of a million interplanetary-capable life forms
in the process of carrying out mega-engineering projects, and yet _none_ of
them have come calling on us? Fermi Paradox calls bullshit.

~~~
david-given
The Fermi Paradox is predicated on the principle that aliens would actually
want to come here. I'm not sure this is a valid assumption.

For a hot and fast civilisation like us to exist for serious amounts of time
in space, it's going to have to adapt to living in space --- because, as you
say, it's intensely hostile. One of the key adaptations is to stop being hot
and fast. If you can live on small energy budgets you're way more likely to
survive. If you live slowly then travel becomes much easier, as well as
costing less.

But if you become a cold and slow civilisation, inner solar systems aren't
going to be very hospitable --- hot, radioactive, space is so bent that travel
is enormously difficult, everything's at the bottom of cripplingly expensive
gravity wells... why bother? The gas giants are rich, but are even more
expensive (to get from low orbit around one of the moons of Jupiter to low
orbit around another takes about 10 km/s. You can launch from the _surface_ of
Earth for that). But further out... the Kuiper and Oort clouds are peaceful,
cheap, hospitable, and chock full of light elements with interesting (if slow)
chemistry.

Estimates of the Oort cloud density predict that there'll be a 20km body every
30 light seconds or so, and that there's about five Earth masses in Sol's Oort
cloud alone. And Oort clouds of neighbouring stars overlap...

So I'm expecting any successful civilisation to start colonising the spaces
_between_ the stars, rather than the star systems themselves.

In this model, our own solar system could already be colonised, and we'd never
know. They'd probably have noticed our radio transmissions by now, but it may
not have occurred to them to answer yet. They may not bother; if we survive
long enough to adapt to space, we'll be out there soon. Or they may not be
able, depending on their energy budget. Or maybe they are, and we just haven't
noticed. (New Horizons has a 12W transmitter and we would have to be looking
in exactly the right direction to spot it. And it's way closer than the Oort
Cloud.)

Of course, this doesn't explain why our hypothetical civilisation has built a
hypothetical megastructure around this star. I wouldn't know why they'd want
to do that (except for noting in passing that interstellar travel for hot-and-
fast creatures like us basically requires a Dyson sphere for the energy
requirements).

I'm planning a book. Can you tell?

~~~
cstross
_So I 'm expecting any successful civilisation to start colonising the spaces
between the stars, rather than the star systems themselves._

Before you start writing your book, you might want to familiarize yourself
with the prior art in the field: start with the short story "Swarm" by Bruce
Sterling, then the novel "Permanence" by Karl Schroeder, "Blindsight" by Peter
Watts, and maybe "Diaspora" by Greg Egan. That's assuming that by "planning a
book" you're thinking in terms of fiction rather than SETI-oriented non-fic,
but even if you're writing non-fic it's worth noting that we SF authors have
been all over the topic for decades. (As for non-fic, the prior art goes all
the way back to J. D. Bernal's "The World, The Flesh, and The Devil", if not
further: I don't read Russian but I gather Nikolai Federov wrote on the
subject, as did Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.)

~~~
david-given
I've read all of those! (I actually discovered Karl Schroeder from your blog;
for which I thank you. I gather _Lockstep_ addresses the same subject, but
haven't read it yet.) Although they're very much focused on going substellar
objects, e.g. brown dwarves or dark giants, while I'm thinking of the vastly
more common asteroidal bodies. It's not a subject I've seen addressed very
often.

Here's the paper that crystallised the idea for me:

[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2687v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2687v1.pdf)

Also, yes, fiction --- I'm not enough of a scholar for non-fic.

------
suprjami
So what's the star called? Even if it's just a boring numbers-and-letters name
it'd still be nice to know.

~~~
david-given
Apparently it's just KIC 8462852, unfortunately, also known as TYC 3162-665-1
and 2MASS J20061546+4427248. Snappy names.

The paper says it's 12th magnitude so it's way, _way_ dimmer than is visible
to the human eye.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIC_8462852](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIC_8462852)

------
pjungwir
Just supposing we really are seeing the space construction projects of a
distant civilization, it seems not impossible that ironically we might be
seeing them before they can see us.

~~~
vectorjohn
That's a good point, I'd never really thought of that! Almost any life we
could find in another system, we'd see before our first radio waves got to
them.

On the other hand, if I was some ancient super advanced civilization, I'd have
probes all over the galaxy, and they'd report as soon as anything interesting
happened with evolution on a planet. So they could know what life was like on
Earth about 1500 years ago, and extrapolate from that.

Not that I can guess what a super advanced civilization would think like :P

------
codezero
There is so much cool science out there, I wish we could accept it as cool
without it being aliens. The phenomenon that lead to this odd flux observation
is more interesting than hypothetical alien megastructures.

Another cool citizen science project was the observations of the epsilon
Aurigae transit.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Aurigae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Aurigae)

~~~
anigbrowl
_The phenomenon that lead to this odd flux observation is more interesting
than hypothetical alien megastructures._

Discovering a previously unknown natural phenomenon would indeed by insanely
cool, and I would want to know all about it in as many frequency bands as
possible.

But alien megastructures are just about the most interesting thing I can think
of short of proof that we live in a hologram, or a simulation, or some new and
robust fundamental theory of matter.

~~~
codezero
I agree actual alien megastructures would be awesome. But hypothetical ones
are the worst.

------
uxcn

        > Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish an 
        > alternative interpretation of the light pattern. SETI researchers have long
        > suggested that we might be able to detect distant extraterrestrial 
        > civilizations, by looking for enormous technological artifacts orbiting 
        > other stars. Wright and his co-authors say the unusual star’s light pattern 
        > is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps stellar-light 
        > collectors, technology designed to catch energy from the star.
    

I guess the theory is that an advanced civilization would be building particle
accelerators on the scale of solar systems, or maybe constructing wormholes?

~~~
bonobo
By " __swarm of megastructures __" and " __technology designed to catch energy
from the star __" I think he's referring to a Dyson Swarm:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_swarm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_swarm)

~~~
uxcn
I'm just not entirely convinced of the premise that energy consumption on that
scale would be necessary for an advanced civilization. Particle accelerators
would be a reasonable possibility though.

~~~
hyperpape
Not sure if I agree with this blogpost, but it's not a crazy idea if you
extrapolate from economics on Earth: [http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-
math/2012/04/economist-meets-...](http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-
math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/).

~~~
uxcn
The math is essentially correct, but it oversimplifies some things, and it
skips a number of factors.

Larry Summers recently shared his opinion on the topic
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-global-
economy-i...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-global-economy-is-
in-serious-danger/2015/10/07/85e81666-6c5d-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_story.html).

~~~
hyperpape
I'm not sure I understand the relevance of what Summers is saying. He's
talking about a current slowdown in growth, and arguing for expansionary
monetary policy. This article is claiming that there's a limited amount of
growth that we can expect in the longterm, because we'll run out of sources of
energy. But Summers isn't talking about energy as a limit..indeed, he's saying
commodity prices are depressed.

Am I missing something?

~~~
uxcn
The other article isn't entirely arguing that energy is a fundamental limit,
although the example it gives is pretty hilarious. It's ultimately arguing
that there are fundamentally limited things for capital to invest in and grow.

~~~
hyperpape
The only argument I see is that energy places a limit on growth. Now, one
might think that if energy is one limit, there must be others, but I can't
find that argument actually presented.

~~~
uxcn

        > Economist: But I have to object to the statement that growth must stop once 
        > energy amount/price saturates. There will always be innovations that people 
        > are willing to purchase that do not require additional energy.
    

...and so on

~~~
hyperpape
I think you're getting this backwards--this is not an argument that there's
more limits, it's an argument over whether limited energy actually implies
limits to growth. What the economist says is "even if energy is limited,
growth is not" and the physicist goes on to rebut that claim.

~~~
uxcn
The rebuttal has to do with the definition of economic growth (assuming it
isn't connected to energy consumption and gdp), which the economist argues has
to do with quality of life. The rebuttal is that quality of life can only
objectively improve to a certain point, and that the remaining measures aren't
really quantifiable.

So the last, albeit minor, argument is that there would be a point where there
isn't anything to invest in to grow, which essentially describes the ultimate
form of secular stagnation. I think the economic counter-argument goes
something like the money supply isn't inherently finite. I could see that
being an interesting argument.

------
awinter-py
Maybe they stopped transmitting because a bacterium ate all their room-
temperature superconductors.

~~~
interpol_p
Possibly a bacterium that initially formed on unsanitized telephone handsets.

------
ryandvm
Hmmm, looks like somebody threw Occam's razor in the trash...

------
stupidcar
I know I shouldn't get excited about this, as a more prosaic explanation is
far more likely, but my heart still skipped a beat when I read “stellar-light
collectors”.

~~~
arethuza
When I read the title I wondered if they had found a star that turns off for
215 of every 250 years...

------
eutropia
Following up with radio telescopes in hopes of finding evidence of
technologically emitted radiation seems pretty hopeless. Encryption of
signals, advanced tech, too many things get in the way of getting a conclusive
signal. Just point the James Webb at it once it's up and running to get a
better picture of what's observable.

------
MrBra
Yes but, how many light-years away is that star?

~~~
Procrastes
I had the same quesiton. It looks like it's only 1500 Light Years [1].

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIC_8462852](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIC_8462852)

------
LoSboccacc
just hypothetically speaking: wouldn't a dyson array need to beam energy to
the planet where those aliens live?

we should be able to pick up that high energy stream with current technology,
but we'd need first to guess at which frequency it transmits to (if it's
there)

edit: ok scratch that I stand corrected I was still thinking in earthling
terms

~~~
david-given
They wouldn't necessarily live on a planet --- planets are a really
inefficient may to make real estate. Much easier to live on the collectors
themselves.

Assuming that 'live' is a useful term; thing about aliens is that they're
going to be alien. Star Trek has conditioned us to think of aliens as humans
in rubber suits, but real aliens are going to be anything but. We don't even
know if it's a 'they'; it could be an 'it'.

If this _is_ an artifact, then all it tells us is that they (or it) builds
tools and likes energy. This suggests an inner-solar-system species like us,
as living where things are fast and hot. But that's not necessarily a given.
It could be a cold and slow outer-solar-system species doing something
uncharacteristic. Or a plasma-based solar species. Or maybe it's something
that's actually _weird_.

I know this is going to turn out to be rocks moving oddly, just like
everything else, but I'm still really interested to see what the results of
the radio telescope survey's going to be...

~~~
xlm1717
I don't think a planet would be an inefficient way to make real estate. Look
at the benefits we get from living on a planet: free gravity, free protection
from UV radiation, free life support, huge storage of water. I would assume
that a civilization capable of constructing huge light collectors would also
have no problem escaping the gravity field of a planet.

~~~
yarou
That assumes that these hypothetical beings are made of matter and not pure
energy. It could be that these beings are energy "parasites" that consume
energy directly from stars. They may even be an artificial intelligence that
seeks to saturate the known universe, in which case a planet is unnecessary
and even inefficient for their real estate. Maybe they just want to construct
more interstellar data centers to propagate ;)

~~~
nitrogen
What would it mean for something to be made of "pure energy" in scientific
terms?

------
dynofuz
This is great. I always thought an advanced et would want to build something
like a dyson hemisphere around its star.

------
marcosscriven
Love the last sentence.

