Star Tard
Incognito
"A paper by a team of astronomers is getting some notice because of aliens.
Now let’s have a care here. The paper doesn't mention aliens, and it doesn't even imply aliens. Not directly, at least. But the astronomers found a star so odd, with behavior so difficult to explain, that it’s clear something weird is happening there. And some of the astronomers who did the work are now looking into the idea that what they've found might (might!) be due to aliens.
But don’t let this idea run away with you (as it has with some folks on social media and, no doubt, will in some sketchier “media” outlets" like GLP "any minute now)"
"The Kepler data for the star are pretty bizarre: There are dips in the light, but they aren’t periodic. They can be very deep; one dropped the amount of starlight by 15 percent, and another by a whopping 22 percent!"
"Straight away, we know we’re not dealing with a planet here."
"Whatever is blocking the star is big, though, up to half the width of the star itself!"
"Get this:
Look at our own civilization. We consume ever-increasing amounts of power, and are always looking for bigger sources. Fossil, nuclear, solar, wind … Decades ago, physicist Freeman Dyson popularized an interesting idea: What if we built thousands of gigantic solar panels, kilometers across, and put them in orbit around the Sun? They’d capture sunlight, convert it to energy, and that could be beamed to Earth for our use. Need more power? Build more panels! An advanced civilization could eventually build millions, billions of them."
"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."
more here - http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy.html
The tin foil hats are on and mommy's basement dwellers are having hot pockets to celebrate this on some other forums, let me be the first to say, it's something we don't understand yet.
Or aliens.
Now let’s have a care here. The paper doesn't mention aliens, and it doesn't even imply aliens. Not directly, at least. But the astronomers found a star so odd, with behavior so difficult to explain, that it’s clear something weird is happening there. And some of the astronomers who did the work are now looking into the idea that what they've found might (might!) be due to aliens.
But don’t let this idea run away with you (as it has with some folks on social media and, no doubt, will in some sketchier “media” outlets" like GLP "any minute now)"
"The Kepler data for the star are pretty bizarre: There are dips in the light, but they aren’t periodic. They can be very deep; one dropped the amount of starlight by 15 percent, and another by a whopping 22 percent!"
"Straight away, we know we’re not dealing with a planet here."
"Whatever is blocking the star is big, though, up to half the width of the star itself!"
"Get this:
Look at our own civilization. We consume ever-increasing amounts of power, and are always looking for bigger sources. Fossil, nuclear, solar, wind … Decades ago, physicist Freeman Dyson popularized an interesting idea: What if we built thousands of gigantic solar panels, kilometers across, and put them in orbit around the Sun? They’d capture sunlight, convert it to energy, and that could be beamed to Earth for our use. Need more power? Build more panels! An advanced civilization could eventually build millions, billions of them."
"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."
more here - http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy.html
The tin foil hats are on and mommy's basement dwellers are having hot pockets to celebrate this on some other forums, let me be the first to say, it's something we don't understand yet.
Or aliens.
