Comments on: An Alien Star

By: N Ramani Kumar

N Ramani Kumar — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 11:10:35 +0000

Suppose the dimming of the star is caused by a planet revolving around a nearer star to the point of observation, then the percentage of dimming can be more and periodical as well

By: Robert Crowley

Robert Crowley — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 21:23:45 +0000

Is the dimming consistent across the EM spectrum, is it just within certain frequency ranges, or do we have enough information to determine that. Also, have there been any spectrographic analyses done that would tell us if the absorption lines have changed over time? I wonder if there is possibly a dust cloud or molecular cloud of some sort slowly passing between us and the star, and differing densities within it are causing the rapid variabilities while an overall average increase in density is causing the long-term dimming.
Of course, if we have done radio and infrared observations of the star as well as just visible light, I suppose that any sort of cloud capable of doing this would have been discovered by now.

By: Jean Tate

Jean Tate — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 13:26:47 +0000

Thanks.

I’m pretty sure there are at least some citizen scientists, in Planet Hunters for example (https://www.planethunters.org/?), who are diligently looking for just such signals.

Interestingly, there seems to be a campaign to raise $$ for dedicated follow-up research on Tabby’s Star (see: https://talk.planethunters.org/#/boards/BPH0000007/discussions/DPH0001fky); go research!

By: Brian Koberlein

Brian Koberlein — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 23:34:43 +0000

There very possibly are similar light curves, but none that we’ve found (at least to my knowledge).

By: Jean Tate

Jean Tate — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 18:51:57 +0000

Have artifacts been 99.999% ruled out? Are there signals like this – using “like” in a very general way – in the Kepler light curves for other stars?

By: Grant W. Johnston

Grant W. Johnston — Sun, 05 Jun 2016 18:35:08 +0000

The truly impressive thing is our technology can measure variations in light from a star almost 1,500 light years away. That causes as much awe in me as anything that might be happening at Tabby’s Star.

By: jpatrick

jpatrick — Sat, 04 Jun 2016 22:46:00 +0000

Is there enough information to rule out extreme sunspots as the source of the dips in visible brightness?

By: Rebeccca

Rebeccca — Sat, 04 Jun 2016 06:17:09 +0000

I believe that we are not the only human being alive…with all the other Plants.and orbit its out there in our huge galaxy there had to be others whether they ate called Aliens or not…we I don’t believe are the only ones