Since 2015, researchers have closely followed the strange little star KIC 8462852, which is 1280 light-years distant from us. She intrigued the possibility that some of her strange light effects might hint at the presence of a developed extraterrestrial civilization. Many thought that a giant alien station was built around the star.
However, a new study excludes alien theory. Sad, yes? Let's take it in order. 8 years ago, the NASA Kepler space telescope (it was he who managed to find most of the exoplanets) discovered the star KIC 8462852, located between the constellations Lyra and Cygnus. But the data pointed to an anomaly - an aberrant pattern of increasing and reducing the brightness level.
Usually such light signals indicate that a massive object, like a planet (or several), rotates around a stellar object. Transits are considered to be the best way to find and characterize the presence of other worlds near a star.
Alien structure overlaps the star?
But the story of KIC 8462852 (Tabby's star) is different, because the star flickered at irregular intervals. There was no straight line indicating the presence of planets. In addition, some inexplicable set of matter noticed in the neighborhood. KIC 8462852 is considered a mature star from which one can expect the formation of a complete planetary system with gaseous and rocky worlds. Astronomer Jason Wright put forward a radical hypothesis: an unusual observation of a change in brightness level caused by the presence of an alien megastructure flying in front of a star. That is, he hinted at the likelihood of the existence of intelligent aliens with advanced technologies that use the energy of the native star.
The idea seems crazy, but she manages to explain the amazing brightness drop of 22%. For comparison, if it was about a planet the size of Jupiter, it will block only 1% of the world. Since then, astronomers have been trying to get more data to develop other theories, such as the presence of a comet or space debris. But the answer could not be found.
The elusive star KIC 8462852 hides a great mystery. This image shows only a small celestial region, where the star Tabbi is only one of millions
The latter study also does not provide definitive conclusions, but the team of scientists intends to gather more evidence. Scientists studied observational data in 2015-2017 using the Swift and Spitzer telescopes. It turned out that from ultraviolet radiation (UV) across the entire visible spectrum to infrared radiation (IR), the star tarnishes at each observed wavelength. This indicates that the original Kepler mission data was accurate. In addition, the team was able to find that the rate of dominance between UV and IR was very different.
Researchers suspect that a microscopic dust ring made of circumstellar material is present in the system, which leads to a drop in brightness. Scientists emphasize that these are preliminary conclusions that fit into the observation. But researchers are 100% sure that the alien megastructure does not rotate around the star.
This is important data for astronomers who have studied the star for several years, but also a great disappointment for alien hunters.
