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NASA Concludes That Comets, Not Alien Megastructures Orbit KIC 8462852 (examiner.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the nothing-to-see-here-human dept.

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.

60 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe the comets are the alien megastructures? by i_ate_god · · Score: 1

    Bet you didn't consider that NASA

    --
    I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
    1. Re:Maybe the comets are the alien megastructures? by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

      No comet

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  2. In unrelated news... by BringMyShuttle · · Score: 1

    ... two Men In Black were seen leaving the Oval Office! https://www.youtube.com/watch?... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... PS ;-)

  3. Another cover up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's been confirmed to be alien megastructures. NASA is trying to bury the evidence again.

    1. Re: Another cover up by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      Giorgio Tsoukalos, your cover is blown.

  4. Dammit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    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.

    1. Re:Dammit... by JustBoo · · Score: 1

      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.

      Indeed, there is plenty of alien life existing in the universe. It's just unfortunate that 99.99999999 percent of it is no more than Pond Scum. Nor ever will be.

    2. Re: Dammit... by JustBoo · · Score: 1

      Who looks like (is) an idiot now. The truth always reveals itself doesn't it. For example, you do not know me at all. Yet you made Wild ASSumptions about me and my background without knowing a single thing. Which makes me totally different from you and your projecting buffoonery. I have actually studied what I am talking about and am realistic about it. You on the other hand, are an emotional child. (A *billion* light years? Bwhahahahaaaa.) Your words prove every bit of that. Oh and you also made Wild ASSumptions about fear. Something else of *yours* you projected onto me. Enjoy your made up reality.

    3. Re: Dammit... by JustBoo · · Score: 1

      billdale said: "Most scientists today are of the opinion that there is intelligent life out there, and that given enough time, we will find it."

      Oh, you mean the 0.00000001 percent anyone with a brain would figure out I was talking about? That intelligent life? Wow.

      Your numbers are ridicules and you are not making any sense. You sound like the old Archimedes Internet Kook. I now just plain pity you. billdale, the Internet Kook, got it. Enjoy.

  5. They LIE! by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    They LIE! They probably work for the government! It's Kolob people, KOLOB!

  6. Rimmer refuses to believe it by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    And Lister keeps insisting they are garbage pods.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  7. There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Huh. Posted my reply as AC for some reason.

      To reiterate:

      22%. Something obscures 22% of the whole side of a star larger than the sun just in our specific direction.

      No. Something blocks 22% of the light emitted in our direction for some amount of time in a regular cycle.

      how could a few comets create this sort of thing unless the "clouds" they create are sucked into the star almost immediately?

      Why would you expect the clouds to be "sucked in" at all?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      The thing I don't get is how comets could possibly block 20% of the star's output. From what I remember, some astronomer said that if there were a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting the star, that would only block 1% of the star's output. If a Jupiter-sized planet would only block 1%, how the heck would some comets block 20 times more?

    3. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      how the heck would some comets block 20 times more?

      How many is "some comets"? Why couldn't "some comets" block 20% of the light from a star? For that matter, why couldn't one comet do it? Remember a comet isn't just the nucleus. There's also a tail, which can be thousands of times longer than a mere planet.

      Just have a look at the illustration that leads the article (probably not entirely to scale, but still).

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    4. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      If it is a regular cycle then the orbit also must be small.

      I got that bit wrong. Only two dimming events have been recorded. One is thought to have been caused by a large leading comet, the other by trailing comets.

      Even when close to us the largest known comets tails only would "cover" a small fraction of the visible area of our sun.

      The largest known comet tail was 500,000,000km long. And they stream out directly away from the star, so imagine looking at a star through the entire 500,000,000km length of a dusty comet tail. You don't think that might obscure the light from the star a bit?

      Imagine something created from colliding comets

      That's a scenario the article specifically dismissses.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    5. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Well again, given that a gas giant can only block 1-2%, this would have to be a really friggin' huge comet, right? A comet bigger than Jupiter? That doesn't sound likely. Sure, the tail might help, but still comet tails don't block light the way a planet does, they're just a collection of dust.

    6. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Well again, given that a gas giant can only block 1-2%, this would have to be a really friggin' huge comet, right? A comet bigger than Jupiter?

      A comet tail bigger than Jupiter. Such a thing has been observed in our own solar system.

      Sure, the tail might help, but still comet tails don't block light the way a planet does, they're just a collection of dust.

      They block light in exactly the same way a planet does, since they are also just a collection of atoms, just more diffuse.

      A few dozen metres of water vapour in the form of clouds can block plenty of the light from our star.

      Even if a comet tail only blocks, say, 0.1% of the light per million kilometres, it would still block a total of 40% of the light if you were looking straight down it at a star (assuming a length of 500,000,000km, as per comet Hyakutake).

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    7. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by Vessarion · · Score: 1

      Erm that star is bigger then our sun, right ? Ho bib does the comet or comets have to be to block 22% of light (so basically 22% of the visible area) on one side of the star ? did anyone ever see such gigantic comets ?

    8. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by Vessarion · · Score: 1

      Meant to say "how big?" ...

    9. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but isn't the length of the tail irrelevant, because the tail would be pointed directly towards Earth (since it's blown by the stellar wind from the star, and the presumed comet is directly between that star and Earth)? I thought comet tails always pointed directly away from their star.

    10. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      exactly and even more importantly 22% of the light of a star implies something somewhat transparent (like the tail of a comet) that is the full angular size of the star.

      So? Tails can be up to 500,000,000 kilometres long. That's 720 times the Sun's diameter.

      Is it that much of a leap to assume that it could actually spread out far enough to block a significant fraction of the star's light? It doesn't have to be the full angular size; about half would do, if the tail is sufficiently long to block out most of the light that passes through it.

      We have no idea how an apparently dark object could be this big.

      When you say "we" do you mean "modern science," or do you just mean "I"?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    11. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      The length is relevant because all of that dust, seen straight on, blocks a lot of light. Stack enough window panes (less than you'd think, probably) on top of each other and eventually you won't be able to see anything through them at all.

      Then it's just a question of how wide a comet's tail can get, in order to get sufficient coverage of the star's shape as seen from Earth. And since the tail can be 720x longer than the star's diameter, I don't think it's much of a leap to think that it could spread out enough in the other two dimensions to do this.

      https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    12. Re: There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      Am I the only one thinking a couple of brown dwarfs?

    13. Re: There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      That's not a bad idea actually. I think I read that Jupiter is just a bit too small to be a brown dwarf, but there's probably a good size range there, so maybe there's a large brown dwarf there.

    14. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      The length is relevant because all of that dust, seen straight on, blocks a lot of light

      Right, I see. I was thinking you meant that the huge length, seen lengthwise, would block a lot of light just because of the sheer length, but this makes more sense since lengthwise it wouldn't be that dense.

      How about the other poster's brown dwarf idea? Could this be caused by a brown dwarf in orbit around the star? Those things can get really big. Effectively, it'd be a multi-star system. Or do brown dwarves emit enough light (probably in IR) to still be seen? And why is my stupid spell-checker telling me that "dwarves" is misspelled?

    15. Re: There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      The thing I don't get is that the GP actually wrote "reiterate" with a straight face.

    16. Re:There needs to be a very detail visual 4D sim by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
      A comet the size of Jupiter would be a Jupiter.

      To get this amount of dimming, you'd need an awful lot of comets (possible - let's say a Jupiter-mass worth of them), and for them to be in a relatively compact group. That would be (as I mentally draw models of the system) concentrated around something like 1/10th of the circumference of the orbit. And you'd need something to hold them in that position.

      My mental imaging is suggesting that this could be a dense "Trojan" swarm held in place by a "Super-Jupiter" whose transit we haven't observed yet.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  8. I'm out $5k by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    You mean the Kician Prince doesn't really exist? Shit!

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  9. Re:Still no Fermi Paradox by roger10-4 · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, you're a "glass half-full" type of person then?

  10. So no Pak Protectors? by kallen3 · · Score: 1

    guess we are safe then...... for a while

  11. That sounds totally cool! by nintendoeats · · Score: 1

    Am I wrong about this? Forget the alien whatever, the idea of thousands of large comets orbiting a planet sounds neat to me.

  12. Hey Slashdot: you're not helping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Hey Slashdot: you're not helping by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I am a registered Planethunter How does one register as a planethunter?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Hey Slashdot: you're not helping by jvrichie · · Score: 4, Informative

      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%. What really got me was the claim that NASA "concluded" the comet hypothesis as correct. They did no such thing.

    3. Re:Hey Slashdot: you're not helping by jvrichie · · Score: 1

      > I am a registered Planethunter

      I know what a "Plane" is, but how do you Thunt?

      Seriously though, your post has good info.

      planethunters.org really is a great way to get involved though. Its mainly just registration, tutorials and getting to know the community but if you like the subject of exoplanets, its fun.

    4. Re:Hey Slashdot: you're not helping by bruce_the_loon · · Score: 2

      I wonder if we are witnessing what a system would look like during a cometary disruption event like our Late Heavy Bombardment period with a lot of close-in comets with planets' names on them.

      --
      Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
    5. Re:Hey Slashdot: you're not helping by ZeRu · · Score: 1

      > I am a registered Planethunter

      I know what a "Plane" is, but how do you Thunt?

      Seriously though, your post has good info.

      And here I was thinking that Planethunter is a mixture of words "Plan" and "ethunter"...if I didn't read your post, I would remain ignorant for the rest of my life.

      --
      If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
    6. Re:Hey Slashdot: you're not helping by jvrichie · · Score: 1

      I know! I screwed it up trying to post on my phone which I assumed logged me in automatically. I followed it up right away but it was on me to check. My own damned fault lol!

    7. Re:Hey Slashdot: you're not helping by jvrichie · · Score: 1

      you'd be fuckin' shocked shitless if you used preview and you chose to type those words into a search engine!

      Haha!! Yep!

  13. Re:Still no Fermi Paradox by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

    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)

  14. It's both, it's The Comet Empire by Nyder · · Score: 1

    It's both a comet & a megastructure. Just hope it doesn't head our way...

    http://ourstarblazers.com/vaul...

    --
    Be seeing you...
  15. Re:Boy are they wrong! by someone1234 · · Score: 1

    No, that's the real Alderaan system after a visit of Darth Vader.

    --
    Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
  16. Re:Still no Fermi Paradox by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    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. . . .
  17. So I guess the obvious question is.. by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 1

    How did the aliens get the comets to do that and why?

  18. Re:Would it kill the editors to use proper grammar by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    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.
  19. Re:Still no Fermi Paradox by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Don't you mean 1:1? Or 1/2?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  20. Obviously... by bgarcia · · Score: 1

    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.
  21. Re:Still no Fermi Paradox by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

    I don't think 1:1 means 50 percent chance.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  22. Re:Still no Fermi Paradox by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    It does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  23. Re:Still no Fermi Paradox by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    You can think of it that way if you like, but no-one else does.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  24. Re:Would it kill the editors to use proper grammar by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    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.'"
  25. Necromongers by Sir+Foxx · · Score: 1

    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
  26. Oh sure by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    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...
  27. Chain of gas giants by Crowd+Computing · · Score: 1

    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.

  28. Re:Still no Fermi Paradox by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

    Ah... My bad.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  29. A system like this might be super-habitable for us by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 2

    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.

  30. Re:Still no Fermi Paradox by JustBoo · · Score: 1

    Um, I'm not sure you understand what the Fermi Paradox is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Enjoy.

  31. Re:Still no Fermi Paradox by Immerman · · Score: 1

    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.
  32. Re:A system like this might be super-habitable for by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    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.