The SETI Institute says it hasn’t detected any alien radio signals coming from a star whose light seems to be dimming in a weird way, but it’s too early to determine what kind of phenomenon is behind the pattern.
The star, which is known as KIC 8462852 and lies about 1,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus, has been the focus of otherworldly buzz for the past month due to anomalous observations gathered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. Kepler’s data suggested that the star goes dramatically dim on an irregular schedule, at intervals ranging from five to 80 days.
Astronomers said the best natural explanation for the effect appeared to be a swarm of comets that just happened to be passing across the star’s disk when Kepler was looking. But one research team, led by Penn State astronomer Jason Wright, speculated that the effect could be caused by an alien megastructure that was being built around the star.
One reply on “No alien signals heard from anomalous star”
Unsurprising. The chance ofe these things being an actual alien megastructure was pretty low – in fact the least likely of the several hypotheses put forward. But still… damn.