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NASA Concludes That Comets, Not Alien Megastructures Orbit KIC 8462852 (examiner.com)
MarkWhittington writes: Back in October, findings from the Kepler Space Telescope suggested that something strange was going on around a star called KIC 8462852. Kepler was built to detect exoplanets by measuring the cycles of dimming light from other stars, indicating that a large object was passing between them and Earth. But the dimming light cycle from KIC 8462852 seemed to suggest a lot of smaller objects swarming around it. Scientists narrowed down the explanations to either a swarm of comets or alien megastructures. NASA announced evidence garnered by two other telescopes that pointed to the comet explanation.
Bet you didn't consider that NASA
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
... two Men In Black were seen leaving the Oval Office! https://www.youtube.com/watch?... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... PS ;-)
Clearly it's the alien Elon Musk privately mining their asteroid belt on 3D printed free electrically propulsed asteroid mining vessels. Their Solar System is swarming with private space ventures!
Its all Cows. Just in space, nobody can hear you mooo. But on earth, it works well. MOOOO! MOOOO! Mooo cows Mooo! Moooo say the Cows. YOU MOOING ALIEN COWS!!!!
It's been confirmed to be alien megastructures. NASA is trying to bury the evidence again.
I've been saying for years that we'd probably discover alien life by watching dimming light surrounding a star that dims irregularly. Here I was hoping I'd be vindicated.
They LIE! They probably work for the government! It's Kolob people, KOLOB!
And Lister keeps insisting they are garbage pods.
#DeleteChrome
22%. Something obscures 22% of the whole side of a star larger than the sun just in our specific direction. Given that obscuration of the star in ALL directions, at 22%, is likely for long periods of time (unless some divine hand is just trying to wink this star just for us).
Anything that is in the same system of that star (and effectively angularly the same distance to us) would have to be 22% of the size of the star in almost all directions from any point of view. So unless the "cloud" or object is right "up against" the star (like a Dyson sphere, or the beginnings of one) how could a few comets create this sort of thing unless the "clouds" they create are sucked into the star almost immediately? (Otherwise an orbiting cloud would create a predictable if irregular pattern)
Sure comets are "more likely" if you just don't want to look into things with Occam's razor combined with Sherlock's favourite! The simplest explanations are the most likely ones unless they become so complex that what is left must be true.
You mean the Kician Prince doesn't really exist? Shit!
Table-ized A.I.
The title is missing a comma. It should be:
NASA Concludes That Comets, Not Alien Megastructures, Orbit KIC 8462852
Not:
NASA Concludes That Comets, Not Alien Megastructures Orbit KIC 8462852
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip6NKDAMYXQ
Well it looks like they are at least doing some editing. Original firehose post doesn't use headline capitalization.
The title takes 71 characters even though submit page says title can only be up to 54 characters, even though the text box is sized for 80 characters.
So, you're a "glass half-full" type of person then?
guess we are safe then...... for a while
You write books, don't you? Yeah, I think you're a writer. Tell me, what's your opinion on the use of contractions during the reception after a symphony?
Wrong. It's aliens.
I ain't sayin' how I know.
We're the only life in this universe.
TRUMP
2016
Am I wrong about this? Forget the alien whatever, the idea of thousands of large comets orbiting a planet sounds neat to me.
is orbiting the star. It may not be anything we can think of.
I am a registered Planethunter - have been for three years. You just skimmed a recycled story from a couple days ago with the only "new" information is that no infrared increase had been detected - which is no news - zero. We have known this since Tabitha Boyjian's paper which suggested the comet swarm theory to begin with and predicted that IF it was cometary debris from a (unprecedented and never before observed or proven phenomenon) then it would show an increase in IR - it does not - so far. We will not know that until most likely February of 2017 which is the most likely estimated recurrence of the next transition.
If there are no further transitions then that in itself would be bizarre since the likelihood of catching such a brief phenomenon at exactly the right moment at that exact point in the sky would be literally astronomically small.
Which, by the way, Boyjian's paper points to as one of the weakest arguments for the comet swarm hypothesis.
So - once again - there is nothing we know now that we did not know two months ago other than a *second* confirmation that there has been no increase in the infrared. All we have is a tweak to the cometary swarm theory that could, possibly explain (by adding an even less likely scenario) how there could be no IR increase now but "may" show an increase during the next transition. Which will most likely be 2017, at which point if there's still no IR increase we'll be exactly where we we're two months ago and likely still are.
Next time take some time to check the story instead of just regurgitating 2-day old feeds.
Being born is a death sentence, that kind of optimism.
The odds of the existence of alien life are 1:2. Any other number is a useless estimate of what we don't actually know.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
It's both a comet & a megastructure. Just hope it doesn't head our way...
http://ourstarblazers.com/vaul...
Be seeing you...
No aliens found, just laziness. Scream "aliens" first and then do some research. This is "science" in 2015.
So, you're a "glass half-full" type of person then?
The glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
How did the aliens get the comets to do that and why?
Original firehose post doesn't use headline capitalization.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Title case is a stupid, pointless, and amibiguity-inducing tradition.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Don't you mean 1:1? Or 1/2?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
IT'S AN ALIEN CONSPIRACY!
Don't believe this "bunch of comets" theory for a second.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
I don't think 1:1 means 50 percent chance.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Boring!
think of the : as the same thing as a line in a fraction with a numerator and denominator
1/100 = 1:100
1/2 = 1:2
1:2.5 = 10/25 = 2/5 = 2:5
What about the aliens?
It does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
You can think of it that way if you like, but no-one else does.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Would it kill the editors to use proper grammar?
Yes. Yes it would. Or at least, if it would, they would be safe.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm pretty sure the Necromongers are always mistaken as comets too. So everyone needs to prepare to go visit the Underverse. And remember you keep what you kill.
"I don't which is worse, that everyone has a price, or that the price is always so low"--Hobbes
So this is where Alderaan used to be?
That's just what they want us to believe so we don't panic. Duh.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I wished I had been a little more calm when I wrote it. I concentrated too much on the lack of IR "glowing" observed and while its still not entirely accurate to say cometary dust doesn't put off infrared the main reason to be skeptical of the comet swarm hypothesis is that we just have no other examples of either such a large "swarm" of comets OR of any naturally occurring celectial body that blocks 22% of starlight. The largest gas giant planet would maybe obscure 2%.
So the only thing really ruled out is diffuse dust. Why not a chain of gas giants in orbital resonance that periodically brings the planet in staggered alignment when viewed from Earth? If such a star system were closer, the gas giants would collectively then appear as a thick band on the stellar equator rather than as a single black dot. I'm not an astrophysicist, so I have no idea how much planetary mass a star can pull.
Or Else!!
Exploration Fleet 26. Log entry 28934. .. .. ..
Approaching KIC 8462852. Older NASA records indicate large numbers of comets which will be suitable for resupply.
Mayday mayday This is is the ESS York. Do not approach KIC 8462852. I repeat do not approach KIC 8462852. Exploration Fleet 26 is destroyed. They are not comets, they are eggs. KIC 8462852 is a nest. Mayday mayday.
Ah... My bad.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I think it's amazing that there could be a system with enough comets to block out such a big portion of starlight. It gets my imagination going because when I picture the future of human expansion, I don't see us living on the natural surfaces of planets, putting up with all the ways in which they are ill-suited to our comfort (wrong gravity, wrong color starlight, wrong day/night cycle for our circadian rhythm, wrong atmosphere, wrong temperature range, too much radiation, etc.). I know that people want to address some of these problems with some sort of transforming, and that will make sense on some planets, but most stars will not have eligible ones.
However, most stars will have enough ordinary junk in their orbit that we will be able to manufacture (with self-replicating AI machines) a perfectly awesome and huge spinning habitat that could have a habitable surface area comparable to that of the Earth. The easiest source for the materials for such a habitat are smallish rocks, because it takes so little energy to eject habitat material from a quarry on a rock with such a small gravity well. A colony would simply dispatch an AI-controlled factory that would convert asteroid material into duplicate AI factories, plus fuel and thrusters that get these to other asteroids. Then the factories retool to convert the asteroids into parts for a giant spinning space station, in which the interior light, atmosphere, gravity and temperature are optimized for terrestrial life, while the star-facing exterior is covered with solar panels, and the shady side is a spiky forest of heatsinks. If the orbit is close enough to the star, the panels alone should generate enough energy to power all the systems and more.
It's very 1960's thinking to picture ourselves living on the surfaces of other planets, and yet, even many scientists have not gotten past that obsolete picture. AI technology plus robotics will allow us to thrive even in extrasolar systems that have nothing but perfectly ordinary crap floating in orbit, because perfectly ordinary crap is exactly what we and every important feature of our biosphere are made of.
What's exciting about a system like this is that if there are lots of comets, it means that there's a lot of great crap within arm's reach from which to build a gigantic new home.
Um, I'm not sure you understand what the Fermi Paradox is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Enjoy.
But of course they dismiss observable life 'out there'
Can't be giving you humans hope and motivation to explore more out there than yourselves, can they?
I'm curious who and what hackers wrote that press release. Certainly wasn't NASA.
Actually, if you RTFA, NASA has simply said that it's more likely to be a fragmented comet than a fragmented asteroid, due to the infrared signatures. It does not, however, conclude that it is a fragmented comet. As a matter of fact, it specifically says, at the end, that's it's still a mystery. So....alien megastructures, motherships, and monsters have not been eliminated as possible explanations.
typically the : is read as "to", so
1:1 = 1 to 1, or 1/2 of one thing, and 1/2 of the other.
1:100 = 1 to 100 = 1 part X in 101 parts total
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I think it's amazing that there could be a system with enough comets to block out such a big portion of starlight.
They think the first dimming event was caused by one comet.
I think the thing to grasp might be that - as the illustration on the article shows, albeit with some artistic licence - you need to imagine looking at the star through the entire millions-of-kilometres length of a dusty comet tail (which streams directly away from the star, so directly towards us). That'll block a lot of light, I'm guessing.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
...but...
http://www.cafepress.ca/mf/75216114/im-not-saying-it-was-aliens-but_tshirt
There is rather more than 1 lifeform on Earth.
@ For a Free Internet: are you writing in some kind of secret alien code that I cannot decipher, or are you typing total jibberish?!