Tabby's Star

IF YOU HAVE BEEN hearing about “Alien Mega Structures,” chances are, it was talk about KIC 8462852: A main sequence star in the Cygnus constellation, about 1,500 light years away. By all accounts, it’s a fairly ordinary star, just one of perhaps 100 billion in our galaxy, but it is what is happening around the star that has astronomers scratching their heads.

The Star first started making waves after it was observed by Kepler, a planet finding space observatory launched in March of 2009. Kepler is able to locate planets in other solar systems (normally undetectable, as they reflect very little light,) by observing the effect they have on the star they orbit. Believe it or not, a planet’s gravity will actually cause a star to wobble as it makes its rounds about its orbit. The other method of detection involves watching for a dimming of the star, as a planet passes in front of it and eclipses a small portion of its light.

Here is where things get interesting…

A typical planet obscures 1% (or less,) of its parent star’s light; but KIC 8462852’s luminosity is being dimmed by between 15 and 22%. That is a lot. When you consider that a planet the size of Jupiter can’t block out more than 1% of a star’s brightness, it becomes clear that whatever is casting this enormous shadow is, itself…enormous.

In September of last year, American astronomer, and post-doctoral fellow at Yale published the scientific article “Where’s The Flux?” The article explored the star’s unusual behavior and tagged it the WTF Star. The article also led to the nickname “Tabby’s Star” which seems to have stuck.

So where are the space aliens?

Here is the thing: astronomers, cosmologists, physicists are all wracking their brains trying to attribute a plausible explanation to what is causing this shadow on Tabby’s Star. The age of the star rules out a proto-planetary accretion disk, and the sheer size and shape of the object (did we mention it isn’t round?) rules out a planet. The best explanation running is a century long meteor shower raining on the star. So, yeah…

With all of these explanations running short, many astronomers are at least considering the possibility that the object may have artificial origins.

So what kind of space ship is it?

In the 1960’s, the mathematician and physicist Freeman Dyson speculated about the energy requirements of a highly advanced civilization. With the understanding that the sun is basically a gargantuan fusion reactor, he proposed a concept, now known as a Dyson Sphere: A Mega Structure, built around a star that could harvest its energy. Since that time, others have expounded upon the idea. There are Dyson Swarms, Bubbles, and Shells, but all follow the same concept: an array of structures, orbiting a star and sucking at its giant, nuclear dug.

It’s a pretty far out idea. One you can hardly think about without instinctively swiping at the tin foil hat a top your head. But for a moment, let’s consider the Fermi paradox: the best argument against the existence of extraterrestrial life. In the 1950’s Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi asked the question, “Where is everybody?”

Given the age, and size of the galaxy (never mind the visible universe,) we should see signs of intelligent life all over the place. Yet the space between the stars remains empty, and the dedicated scientists manning the array of telescopes at SETI are still waiting by an interstellar phone that just doesn’t ring. A civilization just a thousand years more sophisticated than our own would be capable of leaving their mark on the universe in the form of massive artifacts and monuments. Perhaps more realistically, they would be flooding the Universe in their broadcasts of radio emissions. But still, Enrico Fermi’s question remains unanswered.

But what might the discovery of intelligent life look like? And might it resemble what we are experiencing now, with Tabby’s Star? If life can evolve elsewhere, and most scientists are convinced that it can, it is very likely there will come a day when humans become aware of its existence. Unfortunately, much to the author’s disappointment, it is unlikely that time has come.

I should note that SETI has scanned the Cygnus constellation for radio emissions, but found nothing.

In writing this article, I reached out to some Astronomers to get a bit more perspective. John Silverman, President of the Central Maine Astronomical Society was kind enough to trade a few emails with me and expressed his own opinions about not only the star, but its recent coverage in the press. He had this to say:

“There is nothing unusual about something unusual being discovered in science.”

The Media is notorious for jumping to conclusions, and giving far more air time to practitioners of junk science, than legitimate inquiry; sensationalism seems to trump realism in the press, but that is the subject of another discussion. I would add, on a personal not that I believe an increased interest in the cosmos (however inflated the topic may be,) might just be worth a little sensationalized reporting. A similar point could be made about the renewal of the Flat Earth debate. Sad and ridiculous as it may be, the silver lining is that kids who might only be trolling PewDiePie videos on YouTube, are researching Pythagoras and Coriolis Effect.

The truth about Tabby’s Star is yet unknown, which in itself is exciting. No matter what we discover, it will enrich and perhaps even call into question what we know about the Universe. The precipice of certainty is not just curiosity, it is nescience. “I don’t know, yet,” is the domain of scientists. “I don’t know, therefore aliens,” is another place entirely.