The Kepler space telescope’s planet-hunting mission was launched in 2009 but lost its key orientation abilities in 2013
Mysterious light on a distant star could be a sign of alien civilisation, some astronomers have claimed, stirring controversy. Not so fast, said NASA.
“The mysterious star, KIC 8462852, does have an odd light curve,” said Steve Howell, working on the Kepler space telescope’s planet-hunting mission. “It does not look like a normal exoplanet or binary star light curve. However, I think that saying that it immediately is alien is a bit of a stretch,” Howell said in an email to AFP.
Kepler observes distant planets and stars by observing transits, or the dimming of light when another celestial body passes in front. The light from this strange world was seen to dim from 15 – 22% at irregular intervals. A planet could not be the cause, because even if it were the size of Jupiter—the largest planet in our solar system—the light from the star would dim only about one percent1% when it passed in between the star and the telescope.
A small portion of the Kepler space telescope’s full field of view—an expansive, 100-square-degree patch of sky in our Milky Way galaxy
Boyajian’s paper explored various natural scenarios, including defects with the Kepler space telescope, an asteroid pile-up or an impact that created a sea of comet debris. But another astronomer, Jason Wright, Penn State University, is preparing his own paper that interprets the light pattern as being the sign of an extraterrestrial civilization.
Wright theorizes that a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps on the order of alien solar energy panels, are to blame. “When (Boyajian) showed me the data, I was fascinated by how crazy it looked,” Wright told The Atlantic. His theory took off on the Internet, but was swiftly debunked.
Howell pointed out that another star, known as KIC 4110611, was previously found to have an odd light curve. “But after a few years of working to find out why, it turned out to be a 5 star system. Yes, perhaps unique, but not alien structures,” he said.
“I think we as scientists will make additional observations of the mysterious star and eventually, more than likely, find out it too is an odd but stellar signal.”
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-mysterious-star-controversy.htmljCp
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