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Mysteriously Variable Star Causes Speculation About Dyson Sphere (slate.com)
gurps_npc writes: Phil Plait just wrote an interesting article about a star that is extremely variable. We generally look for cyclical, minute (1%) variations in star light to detect planets. But we found one that has a variation in starlight of over 20%. We don't have a very good explanation for this, and some people are speculating that such variation could be caused by a civilization building a Dyson Sphere around the star. From the article: "Such a sphere would be dark in visible light, but emit a lot of infrared. People have looked for them, but we've never seen one (obviously). Which brings us back to KIC 8462852 (PDF). What if we caught an advanced alien civilization in the process of building such an artifact? Huge panels (or clusters of them) hundreds of thousands of kilometers across, and oddly-shaped, could produce the dips we see in that star's light." Plait says it's overwhelmingly unlikely, but interesting nonetheless.
I don't care about this. I just need to know if it will still vacuum efficiently.
That would only apply if it was finished being built. The rabid distortions and exaggerations are claiming it's "under construction", which means it would be all patchy and full of mostly open areas still.
But if their Congressional funding got cut mid-sphere... Dyson's Bowl.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Except that it's lots of lightyears away which means it would have been lots of years ago which means....OMG THEY'RE ON THEIR WAY HERE, RUN!
We always imagine great things at the slightest anomaly, only to find the boring truth later.
Maybe it is just Jesus playing with a dimmer switch. Kids like to play with dad's things you know.
It could also be God, slowly orbiting around the star while chatting with Jesus.
I mean, while we're here positing off-the-wall concepts like Dyson Spheres on the basis of nothing more than "a star regularly dims 20% in a cycle"...
The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
It could be anything; a faulty stench coil...some cheese on the lens.... Who knows?
Incoming Pak Protectors? Maybe an invasion of Moties?
If you've ever watched Star Trek, you know that every strange phenomenon is an indication that the nebula, or asteroid belt, or whatever...is actually a living, sentient being. Maybe THAT'S what's going on here!
So you're saying that guessing about some alien civilization we can't prove exists, building a fabulously and probably impossibly expensive structure around a star we can't see that well might be jumping to conclusions?
Dyson Denier.