SETI all set examine the ‘most mysterious star

KIC 8462852 has been dubbed as the galaxy’s most mysterious star. Looks like it has caught SETI’s (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) attention. The findings were published in a report and it includes interviews with the research team. The star lies between the constellations Lyra and Cygnus. The team has been observing the star for four years and had found it very intriguing. One of the most intriguing observations is the presence of unusual matter surrounding it. Tabetha Boyajiyan, co-author of the paper said, “We’d never seen anything like this star. It was really weird. We thought it might be bad data or movement on the spacecraft, but everything checked out.” Later in the same report another astronomer has described what appeared to be a swarm of objects surrounding the star. He says, “something you would expect an alien civilization to build.”

Now the star has been dubbed as the “alien megastructure” and the research is in full force. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at SETI said, “We are looking at it with the Allen Telescope Array.” Looking at the excitement and curiosity levels he urged for a calm approach. He said, “[People] should perhaps moderate their enthusiasm with the lessons of history. History suggests we’re going to find an explanation for this that doesn’t involve Klingons, if you will.”

The pulsars (rotating neuron stars) also caused a lot of stir when they were first discovered in 1960s. the electromagnetic pulses emitted by pulsars were thought to be an communication attempt by the extraterrestrial world. However, this new star has some natural scenarios yet to be explained – for example the debris around it. One explanation being given is that it might be created due to be an impact on the star’s surface. But then this explanation fails to the dimming of light by 20 percent as observed by researches over these four years. Or it could be aliens, but one cannot be sure with the far-fetched explanation.

Steve Howell, a member of planet hunting mission said, “The mysterious star, KIC 8462852, does have an odd light curve. 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.” the paper appears in a British journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society”. Kepler telescope works by observing  transits and dimming of light from the distant stars and planets. In this there is dimming of 15-22 percent and that too at irregular intervals. This rules out the possibility of the star being a planet, since even from the stars as big as Jupiter the light dims only by 1 percent.

Jason Wright, astronomer from Penn State University says, “When (Boyajian) showed me the data, I was fascinated by how crazy it looked. Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build.”
Howell said another star KIC 4110611 was too found to have a light curve that was odd. He said, “But after a few years of working to find out why, it turned out to be a five star system. Yes, perhaps unique, but not alien structures. 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.”

Image Source: cdn.theatlantic.com