Slashdot Mirror
Second Irregularly Dimming Star Found (phys.org)
Long-time Slashdot reader RockDoctor writes: Remember the screaming and welcoming of our Dyson-Sphere-Dwelling 1500 LY distant Overlords that accompanied the news that star KIC 8462852 was irregularly dimming on both short and longer timescales? A second star with a similar light curve has been discovered and reported on ARXIV.
With the euphonious names "EPIC 204278916" and "2MASS J16020757-2257467", the star is a young M1 (red) star, traveling as part of a group of stars which haven't had time to disperse from their place of formation. The age is estimated at 5 — 11 million years. Analysis of 70+ days of data from the K2 mission epoch shows a rotation of 3.6 days, but a period of 25 days near the start of the observation epoch showed dips in intensity of up to 60% lasting for up to about a day each. Details are in the Arxiv paper linked to above, particularly figures 1 and 4.
If confirmed, this discovery changes the situation with interpreting the so-called "Tabby's Star". Firstly with a second object in the class, the odds of it representing a class of naturally occurring objects compared to a unique, unusual object is greatly increased. Secondly, the different celestial mechanical situations around the different stars allows a better estimate of plausible formation mechanisms. One potentially important point is that clumps of debris that could produce these dimmings seem to be quite large. "It is also important to note that the resulting size for the transiting and occulting clump would be quite large at with the clump being in the order of 1.5 times the radius of the Sun. Sadly, this appears to be a new class of "dirty young planetary system." no alien Overlords, no screaming in the streets. Just business-like astronomy.
With the euphonious names "EPIC 204278916" and "2MASS J16020757-2257467", the star is a young M1 (red) star, traveling as part of a group of stars which haven't had time to disperse from their place of formation. The age is estimated at 5 — 11 million years. Analysis of 70+ days of data from the K2 mission epoch shows a rotation of 3.6 days, but a period of 25 days near the start of the observation epoch showed dips in intensity of up to 60% lasting for up to about a day each. Details are in the Arxiv paper linked to above, particularly figures 1 and 4.
If confirmed, this discovery changes the situation with interpreting the so-called "Tabby's Star". Firstly with a second object in the class, the odds of it representing a class of naturally occurring objects compared to a unique, unusual object is greatly increased. Secondly, the different celestial mechanical situations around the different stars allows a better estimate of plausible formation mechanisms. One potentially important point is that clumps of debris that could produce these dimmings seem to be quite large. "It is also important to note that the resulting size for the transiting and occulting clump would be quite large at with the clump being in the order of 1.5 times the radius of the Sun. Sadly, this appears to be a new class of "dirty young planetary system." no alien Overlords, no screaming in the streets. Just business-like astronomy.
no alien Overlords, no screaming in the streets.
Trump will be the aliens' overlord when we build the Wall, and there will be rejoicing in the streets!
Or...now follow me on this...maybe there are *two* Kardashev-II civilizations out there?
I mean, I know the odds of there being exactly one such civilization in the entire visible universe are pretty overwhelming (remember how shocked explorers were when they found a *second* multicontinent?), but still, it just might be possible.
cataegory 3 civilizations and we had better watch our "P"'s and "Q"'s.... Just sayin'
It's a Dyson. It shines in a shop window. It dims when you start using it.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
If you are an advanced alien race that needs more living space, it's much more practical to construct a partial dyson sphere in your own back yard, than to colonize other star systems. Our galaxy is big enough that there should be multiple inhabited star systems out there, and possibly multiple partial dyson spheres. But the laws of physics make visits from flesh and blood aliens highly unlikely.
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
"
If confirmed, this discovery changes the situation with interpreting the so-called "Tabby's Star"."
The most important reason why this deprecates Tabby's Star as an alien megastructure is that at 5-11 million years, this new star is far too young to have undergone planet formation, let alone a highly developed civilization. If we can identify a natural mechanism for its odd light changes, Occam says this is the most likely explanation for Tabby's Star also.
Meanwhile, we ourselves are making these observations as a Kardashian Type I civilization, which means that we are too focused on the antics of celebrities to have a real space program. Fortunately, private sector initiatives like the Allen Telescope Array may get us the definitive data first.
... Someone opened their beer on the big red button. Now the whole place went supercritical and started making stars. Oh, the universe, only if these hip guys cares to read the safety instruction...
There is a lot of debris in orbit around various stars in the infinite possibilities that comprise the multitude of galaxies that make up what we can see.
Those who wish to see aliens will see them no matter what.
This star is different, it has a disk.
suffering *BSD new core is going fact there won't And she ran propaganda and Lubrication. you election to the of reality. Keep worse and worse. As SLING you can formed his own been sitting here any parting shot, charnel house. The numbers continue fatal mistakes, your replies rather a popular 'news NIGGER ASSOCIaTION not so bad. To the halt. Even Emacs the mundane chores Big deal. Death to the crowd in Numbers continue Irc.easynews.com I read the latest Is not prone to WASTE OF BITS AND states that there is the group that too many rules and Assholes, as they progress. Any too much formality website. Mr. de a child knows from within. CONTRIBUTED CODE United States of there are about 700 was what got me something cool sling, return it to hobby. It was all The project faces, market share. Red short of a miracle prima donnas to
Rats, you guessed my password!
Table-ized A.I.
So this article is not about Britney Spears?
I was hunted in Slab City
https://www.reddit.com/r/solot...
"A tiny history lesson on Slab City for those that have no idea what it is. I first became aware of it in the Sean Penn directed movie about the life of Christopher McCandless, "Into the Wild". In Alexander SuperTramp's (A name Chris chose for himself) travels around the US before ultimately dying in an abandoned bus in Alaska, he spends time at Slab City.
It was originally an army base, it looks peaceful and loving, a hippie utopia. He visits Salvation mountain. It is a monument right outside of Slab City that was built over the course of 30 years by Leonard Knight. A crazy old Slabber, but full of love like nobody you've ever seen. He built it out of Hay bails covered in adobe, items he found in the desert and covered it in over 300,000 cans of paint, all donated. Leonard has since died and his mountain is a tourist attraction. Without him to do the constant maintenance on his creation, it will slowly crumble to nothing.
I researched the Slabs a bit just out of curiosity. Even thoughhough it is in the damn Imperial desert in California, it has a water source. What I believe to be the Colorado River is redirected along side the Slabs. There is a natural hot spring where these fuckers bathe in each others filthy body stew. There is a makeshift Library, an internet cafe, a bunch of little social clubs you can join and even a hostel for teenage runaways that takes any sort of miniscule donation. There is a church and they actually feed the Slabbers on Saturday's. And of course, there is "The Range". Saturday night's entertainment. A stage set in front of a hundred of the worst condition couches and chairs you'll ever see. Have you ever seen a stained couch on the sidewalk with holes and springs poking out and a "free" sign on it? Well, I assure you it ended up at The Range. Anyway, it's a talent show of sorts. Possibly the only talent it has ever seen was an acoustic song sung by Kirsten Stuart in the movie.
So that's Slab City. The state of California is trying to sell the land and evict all of the squatters, Snowbirds (retirement age RV'ers) tweakers, criminals, hippies and lowlifes. Had I written this before my actual experience there I would have said they are trying to evict the loving hippie commune that just want a simple life and deserve to have this one forgotten piece of desert. But, I've been there and opinions change. So, I figured if I ever want to check out this place before it is sold or Salvation Mountain crumbles to dust, now is the time.
That's why I went. Just to check it out, camp for a week or so...maybe longer if I liked the vibe. I had enough supplies to last me and my dog for months. Now on with my horror story...
I left on 11/3/15 at 7am with my trusty road dog named Cooper. He is an Italian Greyhound/Pit bull mix. I wanted to get there as fast as possible. New Hampshire to southern California, just over 3000 miles in a Honda Civic with NO radio. I only stayed at 2 Motels long enough to get a full night sleep and took a 3 hour nap at a rest stop. There isn't much to say about the entire length of the US when you're rushing through it. I arrived at Slab City on 11/6/15 at 9:30pm having spent only $300 on gas, not bad at all. Being so late at night and as dark as I've ever seen, I had no idea where to go. I didn't want to infringe on someone's established site. I drove down a dirt road that could shake the bolts loose on your car. I saw a spot I could pull in with nobody around. I got out and looked into the darkness and filled Coopers bowls with food and water. I was expecting to hear people, maybe rowdy people or talking or music, something. It was completely silent, at 9:30pm. NOTHING. I then realized that I am making a lot of noise when A flashlight came on in the distance. I've been opening and closing my doors and my dog eating is echoing in the distance. I realize that I'm the asshole.
I was e
By the mere fact that we have noticed this twice now (and we've looked at very few stars) would suggest this is not terribly uncommon. Even if it's one in a million, there are thousands in just our own galaxy.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
They are two different things. The young star system would have a lot of debris in it and the star itself would be still unstable. So it is reasonable for its light output to vary. The other star was old.
What evidence do you have that you can travel faster than the speed of light? If you have evidence of it, then produce it. Einstein said it isn't possible. Do you know better? Welcome to reality. Reality isn't Star Trek.
Absolutely none, and it is not possible according to current models.
However, maybe those models are incomplete. For example, maybe the universe is a simulation and someone exists outside of it capable of mucking about with it. Or perhaps we will discover how to create a buffer overflow.
Real lawyers write in C++
We have known for quite some time that young stars can behave this way. The reason Tabby is odd is because it DOESN’T appear to be young. I doubt the same mechanism will explain both unless Tabby’s age is radically down graded. I suppose that could happen, but the reason I believe it won’t is the highly symmetric first dip and the another dip indicating a huge ring structure object, then came the wacky random fluctuations that without the other two anomalies would like a young planetary forming nebula. On September 14th, GAIA will release its first trove of data on star distances and motion. Likely this data will give us a much better idea about what Tabby’s star is. Still only if and when another occlusion occurs we will really be able to draw some real conclusions.
Letter To Iran
It's a bit of trial and error when you're firing up this sort of thing. Stars/suns take a lot of engineering and none of it is handed down.
antibacterial soap. 5uff3ring *BSD
I for one sadly say goodbye to our Dyson Sphere building overlords...
10^28 Kg of ex-lax should straighten out any stellar irregularities...
On a scale of a galaxy a civilisation growing up around a star is a pretty natural thing, you could even argue that a civilisation is part of a natural cycle of the start. So it is also natural when that civilisation will build a dyson sphere around one.
Actually about 100 years ago, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was working out and publishing the theory of how humans would eventually use rockets to reach the Moon, and other places in space:
I just discovered our world is full of nuts. Eureka our world must be a scrotum.
Twinkle, twinkle little star...
wat die donner maak jy daar...
There is nothing new under the sun^Wstar it seems.
I believe that the dimming is more likely cause by dark matter rather than a Dyson Sphere.
Wouldn't a Dyson sphere require a vastly considerable amount of resource material?
I wonder if there is not enough material in all 8 known planets plus asteroid belt to construct a Dyson sphere around our own star.
Not to mention the inconceivable amount of other resources needed to process and construct the thing; like workers and manufacturing facilities.
My money would be on a more naturally occurring phenomena. Perhaps a dark object(s) occluding view, or an as-yet unknown type of core reaction.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.