Tabby's Strange Star Just Got Stranger
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- Опубліковано 20 вер 2024
- It's been a year since astronomer Tabetha Boyaijan found strange signals coming from a star called KIC 8462852, aka Tabby's Star. Now, new research shows that it's even stranger than we thought. Plus, good news from spaceflight company Blue Origin: your dream of going to space might be one step closer!
Learn more about:
Tabetha Boyajian : • SciShow Talk Show: Tab...
The Kepler Telescope : • Kepler's Planetary Bon...
Alien Megastructure : • What's Up With the 'Al...
Hosted by : Caitlin Hofmeister
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Sources:
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2:39 "Colonel, you better have a look at this radar."
"What is it, son?"
"I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant-"
dick
Pecker!
Wang! Pay attention!
Privates! We have reports of an unidentified flying object. It has a long, smooth shaft, complete with--
...nuts! They say they'll serve nuts on the civilian passenger flights, too!
I'm not saying that it's aliens.
But it's aliens.
nachoolo yes i dont think so
"Don't mind us, humans, we're just harvesting another star." The big question though is, if it is aliens, how do their comms work. Cause if it is (or better was) aliens responsible for this star's unusual display, then we should also be in the path of any stray transmissions.
So everything that you think you see was built by aliens? Must be an industrious bunch.
As well.. they don't need to be human, and since we can't speak to any other animal on earth hardly. Good luck with us understanding their communication or them understanding ours.
If there were aliens advanced enough to harvest a star or build a dyson sphere, they may have abandoned radio waves a long time ago and they're using something we haven't even conceived of yet. It's possible the last of their radio transmissions passed by the earth when only dinosaurs were here to hear them.
Whatever the phenomenon is, for the sake of the thought, let's keep it mind that it happened 1,480 years ago.
And that was what?
AJZulu Tabby's Star.
Brendan Feay oh yes. light speed and all that
I assume that star is more than 1400 light years away. I don't think we're that close to any stars
@@rmyyc the sun is 0.000016 lightyears away, and Alpha Centauri is about 4.2 lightyears. There are hundreds of stars in under 1000 lightyears.
I'm not saying it's aliens but it's just a dyson sphere
it's obviously being absorbed by a space snake
its definetly not a dyson sphere. its MAYBE a dyson swarm.
self-building dyson-spheres are actually really common.
space whale
DURR PLANT every dyson sphere is a dyson swarm before it's done.
What if Tabby's star is just a giant electron, so it doesn't follow logical physics?
Yup, totally legit. Nothing wrong with this conclusion.
Electrons do not decay in any form as far as we know, so dimishing is out of the question.
what if..the whole universe is just a giant atom. Think about it.
***** um..that's not new. That's something we've already thought about, a lot.
***** Think about this: What if..and bear with me for this..its a really wild theory..there is a "creator", a single individual, with the power to shape the world. And he made us in his vision. And he also happens to be human for some reasons and share human like qualities. Lets name this individual..."god".
mind == blown
pramitbanerjee
I love Morgan Freeman.
Maybe some alien civilization is draining it... Queue X-file music
What scientists are thinking this might be is a Dyson Swarm.
It's The Starkiller, draining Tabby's Star, getting ready to fire!
Maybe it has already fired, but we won't know for several light years! Lolphysics.
An environment conscious alien civilization at that. Starlifting can prolong a star's life span. And the thought that there can be a Dyson swarm and a little bit of starlifting going on is awesome and terrifying.
Good point, Artem! We believe this star is relatively close to the end of it's main sequence. If we are correct, starlifting makes sense. Your idea could explain both observed phenomena; dramatic random fluctuations, as well as prolonged gradual dimming.
Whelp, they're sucking energy from it. That's literally what we theorized about a week after the data came in.
Either that, or it's just stars being stars and making very little sense.
Caitlin is adorable. She always seems genuinely excited about what she's saying.
The most likely explanation... Reapers
TheRiekman lmaooo this^^^
TheRiekman i love you
Ah yes, "Reapers."
Vehrec Very well... I will save this galaxy myself.
We need you Sheppard commander
The reason the star is acting strange is because there is a glitch in the matrix.
Can't we build an 1890 camera and compare the images?
that is.. actually pretty smart..
+
no we can't since people around that were unable to perceive color (or perhaps there was no color? either way, its a big mystery). The biological mechanism that causes this, (color blindness is the closest to it that we have), may not be responsible for the species wide phenomenon of having no color. We have not found this phenomenon in our biological samples dating back to that time, so until we dissociate this phenomenon with its mechanistic insight properly(with evidence i mean) we should take a acceptable element of error.
Note that there is a small group of humans who think that the world was actually in color, and only our televisions and cameras were unable to take color photos. Bullshit i call that. Think about it. If you can make black and white filters, surely you can easily make color pictures. Or you could use paint. These kinds of..conspiracy theories is what prevents progress, as more and more people think its "cool" to withhold reason, cherry pick data, and use flawed/biased reasoning!
bdijkstra1982 smart, but I think the light pollution is way higher than in 1890, we might not have as good results
TheSkyline35 you can correct for light pollution. But you make a good point
Last time i was this early clowns were still funny
Me too, it's been hard you know!
Raycis
They never were.
the creepy clowns are the illegal immigrants you moran
"Moran" lol, takes one to know one.
It could be that the megastructure takes a while to construct and as more of it is built, more of the star's light is dimmed slightly
How far away is this star?
KIC.. Tabbys Star is about 1480 Lightyears away. So, if it IS aliens, and they looked at earth, they would see it in roman times. Not much EM waves being sent at their direction from us, they'd probably think "Hey, a planet in the habitable zone of its star; and it has water. Maybe there's life?"
Selmokk Possibly.
Elk, if they're building mega structures we can detect, they would probably also be able to measure our atmospheric composition and see oxygen with trace amounts of methane and other hydrocarbons, which is a really good indication of life.
Well if it is aliens they were building that dyson sphere 1480 years ago, who knows what kind of technology they have today, they could very well know about us who knows...
When Blue Origin actually makes it to orbit I will care about them.
Do you want Reapers? Because this is how you get Reapers.
Human ....Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater.
Hydrochloric Acid Goddamn it! I told you guys!
I FOR ONE WELCOME OUR NEW ROBOTIC OVERLORDS
abschussrampe hahahahahahahahahaha
We exist because they allow it, and we'll end because they demand it.
What a great lady you are. Thank you for taking the time to make such a great video. Love and peace to you and yours.
seems like they are expanding their dyson swarm to make up for increased energy demands of their civilisation :3
That would certainly explain it overall getting dimmer over time...
nosirrbro I also think that the dyson swarm hypothesis was the better one from the beginning, but of course 'extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence' so it is always good to be sceptical in the beginning. Now we have more evidence, I am already looking forward to what the reactions of the scientific comunity will be and if they will come up with a better, non-artificial explaination^^
They WERE expanding it in 536 A.D.
***** yeah... looking into the stars is looking into the past after all
They might still be! Or maybe they've moved on to other stars to harvest those for energy :o
If it is an alien megastructure, it was most likely being progressively upgraded, repaired, and crowded around by alien vehicles around 1000 years ago when the light we're seeing coming from it was originally interrupted. By now these guys are probably either taking over the universe or they've blown themselves to bits.
did they _have_ to make the rocket so phallic?
yes
The designer was compensating for something.
Such as drag and weight distribution.
There's a reason it's called blue *ORIGIN*.
It shoots little tadpole like drones when it gets excited, and turns oval-shaped asteroids into 200' tall babies.
Well if the shape of the rocket offends your sensibilities, get an advanced degree in aeronautical engineering and design one that looks different but works as good or better.
haha she gets so excited, it's awesome to see that much enthusiasm
Star Killer base! It's here and getting ready to blast us.
Thanks for not assuming we knew the background of this story.
this is this narrator's best video. thanks for the post!
It's unlikely to be debris from an asteroid or planet. With the amount the star is dimming it would have to have been a monster of a planet. And since no nearby stars are dimming in the same way, its unlikely to be a gas cloud of some sort.
Also, the dimming seems to be increasing in rate, year by year.
I think there is more of a chance than most would admit that we are talking about something artificial here. But still, that's only one of several possibilities. It might be something completely new that we haven't thought of.
It is in fact something new we havrn't come across even once. A star with irregular dimishing, that is.
JOhn Doe
Possibly yea
The data you're reaching your conclusion from is suspect.
sugarfrosted
Just repeating a version of all I've read on the subject.
So a Dyson ring/object, then?
I’m not saying it’s reapers but..... SHEPHERD. WREX.
I love how excited you are about all this stuff
Death spirals save lives!
If you mean the Kerbal Space Program, I've never played it and don't intend to.
I wonder how the sun would look considering how many planets there are, the asteroid belt and the kuiper belt. There's a lot of matter circling our star, it might even seem as irregular or more so.
Mike Blodgett yeah man don't think we are the only solar system to have all that shit. there's soooo much more out there
Wait, so the star dimmed by 3% in the last four years, but scientists believe it may have been dimming at least since 1890? That would mean that either its dimming is increasing exponentially, or that something has been causing it to dim more rapidly in recent years, right? Because otherwise it would have gone dark by now. Am I missing something here?
I think you're taking the percentage out of a total of 100% but every time they subtract they're resetting to 100. So the percentages don't stack.
William T. Bolles Ah, yes, of course, please excuse the peanut I have for a brain =P
I love that she`s so enthusiastic! Makes me smile :)
It's me. My colossal, occluding fart cloud.
What a great story - just a story - where a civilization builds a mega-structure to survive their star dimming quickly.
What? Stars don't dim like that. The hypothesis is that aliens are building a structure to use the light and that is obscuring the star from us and therefore causing the dimming.
omg aliens sucking power from a sun dry to charge their planet annihilator lazer beam
of death!
MrDisgruntledGamer1 so at any time we might see the star light up really brightly and then we'll vaporise? Cool!
That's no star. That's a ship!
You've been watching too many Star Wars movies.
Armadillito that would be terrifying, only a quasar could shoot a crazy beam of death like that. Imagine an alien race that could point a quasar black hole at us we wouldnt stand a chance...
Nah, thats no the case. The dimming occured in 20 years, because they have build more parts of a dyson shpere or a dyson swarm. That is more likely than "sucking power" from the star.
*jumps to the conclusion that it's aliens, and tells skeptics that they're blinded by their arrogance*
hopefully the james webb telescope will be able to observe that star in a better resolution
I't better, or why the hell are we building it. Webb is supposed to be 50x the hubbles power.
I love her energy, and interest in Space!
You could account for any error introduced in the old (1890) data or the new data by comparing other stars that are in both images. If all the stars in both images appear to be dimming by the same amount then there are likely errors but if it is just Tabby's star that is dimming then the dimming is likely real.
Her love of space is contagious
hey maybe that new nerd-punk lady can do some space episodes too?
Well, you know what the guys at PBS Spacetime always say: "it's never aliens".
Of *course* it's not aliens! We've never seen aliens before, thus there's no prior evidence of aliens, thus it can't be aliens!
Don't mind the fact that with this logic, it's literally impossible to ever discover aliens. Even if they show up at our doorstep and claim they're aliens.
*****
But you should still check out their channel if you haven't already.
Aliens who are smart enough to avoid wasting their time with humans. If so, then there is intelligence in the Universe, just none on Earth. Awesome.
Aren't you cool for hating humanity yet?
Let's just say I am NOT impressed with humanity on any level and let's leave it at that. If humanity wishes to be lauded then humanity should get-up off its dead ass and do something laudable. So far this is NOT the case. In the meantime, I remain hopeful this "may" happen someday however I am NOT holding my breath in the meantime.
Because I have two different cameras. Obvious !!!
Oh, you only found the first dozen... you'll never find the 2nd dozen. LOL
It seems that someone have reached Level II as a civilization! :D Let's send them a 'Congratulations!' plate on board of Voyager III.
I wish they would just admit it MIGHT be aliens.
PukkaCraft just getting scientists to say "I don't know" is hard enough.
PukkaCraft because they don't wanna jump the gun, saying it MIGHT be aliens and then have everyone spiral that into 'Aliens exist! We better prepare!' and then be brutaliated against for 'claiming' it was aliens. Its pointing that way yes, but with the unparalleled significance of finding intelligent life it doesn't hurt to be a little humble and downplay the possibility of aliens until we're more certain. If anything, so that no dreams are crushed and no war is waged on them if it turn out to be something non-artificial.
wow that was a book, sorry xD
well, some of the aliens might be nice WINK WINK
PukkaCraft Shape-shifting aliens would be great. :P
IMPRESSIVE!
CONGRATULATIONS!
WELL DONE!
hey if you've got a dyson swarm replicating itself, it's going to slowly dim the star as the solar collectors get to their orbits.
really, a dyson swarm isn't that high technology, it's mostly a feat of automated manufacturing and robotics
"Oh it's *ONLY* a dyson swarm"
Ryukachoo Pretty run-of-the mill as titanic stellar megastructures go
Mojoforthewin I mean, they do only take up like a whole planet, and may take centuries to build and crap.
Tři III van Wabawooo Not to mention whatever they're using it to power
wouldn't a dyson swarm logarithmically dim the star? Maybe it's early days.
Thanks Caitlin
The supposed structure we are noticing is in the past, right?
It's many lightyears away, so yeah.
So if there really is an advanced civilization over there than we can watch and records their history starting from now 😀
Jason Owlbright , which is weird, right?? In a sense we can see their future as well.
Oscar Alvarado Wierd, mind-blowing, thought-provoking, and awesome! Lol 😀
Man, I really hope it's a Dyson Swarm around Tabby's Star. I can't even imagine how amazing that would be.
The only explanation that is never considered is that we don't know how stars operate and yet that is also the most likely.
Where is Occam's Razor when you need it?.
Zeemike1 pretty sure 'I don't know' is a pretty major consideration in this.
Except "we don't know" is not an explanation; the cause of the star's weird behavior is not because of our lack of knowledge. So Occam's Razor doesn't apply to that. Even in the cases that the razor may apply, it's not always correct. Some things are just not simple.
Nice to meet you :)
Maybe the star just swallowed a gas giant or something and is having a bit of indigestion.
DrToonhattan
Granted, that means something must have knocked the giant out of orbit Significantly, lest it just settle into a lower orbit
There are more problems with the comet theory.
1. To make such massive dips in brightness, there would need to be a ridiculous amount of material.
2. Said comet fragments would heat up, emitting Infrared light. Tabby's star emits the exact expected amount of IR, and nothing more.
I've never been this early ...
same
Space rocks flying in front of a star? No... it must be aliens
She reminds me of a little girl that just drank a six pack of red bull.
She's just excited. It's nice to see the host to not be bored from the news.
I thought of a squirrel, actually.
I just wish she didn't have a nasty piece of metal stuck in her face.. seriously, get that crap removed. It's not cool.
Over time, my standards have changed... Now I'd enjoy her intelligent energy, her enthusiasm, and I'd want to make her pregnant; maybe several times. :) Looks aren't everything, you know.
@@tomhannah3825 Can you imagine the vocalisation!
The engineer who came up with that blue origin system of a capsule on a booster plays a liiittle too much Kerbal Space Program...
calling it now, It's a black hole.
a small one?
It's a small main sequence star that is only 1480 ly away. It most likely is not a black hole by now. It also never will be because it is not massive enough.
i think he meant that a black hole is near the star
wouldn't we see the accretion disk?
lol the star would have been gone in a short period of time, black holes are extremely powerful!
I like this one. Thousands of years ago a planet got too close. Its moon was stripped away and started outgassing. The planet fell into the star and the star is still cooling from that event. The dips for us depend upon the moon’s rotation facing the star for outgassing from its surface sources and where it is in its orbit for us to see the dimming effect.
Tabby's strange star? they are probably thinking the same thing about us.
Let's hope they send a probe prior to a galactic missile.
Might be something more subtle. Why create a scene if you can wipe everything out with a virus. Just be a plauge to us.
She's back!!!
if it was an alien megastructure, wouldn't it be more likely it'd revolve around the star in regular intervals?
no b cuz they r most likely refering to a dyson sphere
steven the Dyson sphere is not possible with the elements and their combinations, it'd break down under its own weight. A Dyson swarm is by far likelier. but a swarm would still have to enter orbit, therefore regular rotation.
RichieHendrixx If it is a Dyson swarm it means that they're currently building one and its not completely built otherwise we would see almost no light. And the constituents of the swarm could change places to capture more light so it explains the random light.
Joshua Noronha It even explains, why it gets dimmer over time.
Dyson swarm doesn't need to orbit
SO EXCITED FOR BLUE ORIGIN
Looks like that rocket is headed to Uranus.
Awesome topic. Awesome presentation.
It's happening again.
It wasn't a comet. It was a planetary body. The random dimming is from chunks passing the star's profile. The continuing dimming is from the continuing collisions of planetary debris devolving into a sort of 'post planetary' dust cloud. One way this might be confirmed is by comparing the frequency of random passings versus overall dimming of the star's light output. As the frequency of random drops decreases, the overall dimming should continue in a related fashion. This would be an indicator that the frequency and size of large planetary debris collisions is decreasing as it continues to pulverize in collisions producing more smaller-scaled dust and debris that would produce a more consistent dimming.
ayy lmao
Hey ! I'm a patron ! Yes, I know, I'm so cool, I'm like a Wikipedia doer but way more cooler
oh my god im early
So excited for the future
I'm pretty disappointed in you for putting forward the alien explanation as one of exactly two possibilities you elucidated. Yep, if we find it's not a recent comet break up, then we must be looking at proof of alien activity. Good science there, SciShow.
Do you have a third explantion that doesn't have to do with swarms of natural celestial objects?
Notice that that's not actually what she said. "The most likely explanation is that a comet has recently broken up in front of the star, and dust and chunks of debris are obstructing our view at random. A far less likely, but way more awesome explanation, is that an alien civilization is using some sort of huge structure to harness the star's energy."
"Putting forward as a possibilty" and "Must be looking at proof" are 2 very different things.
It is only a possibillity. But as exited as i got, about possible neighbours i still have to admit there could be natural Source for all this weirdness. Either way it is super exiting.
nosirrbro You demonstrate my point perfectly. The logic, "Well if you don't have a better explanation, it's aliens" is an exact analogue of the logic of the Intelligent Design movement. The default "explanation" for unexplained phenomena is not aliens nor is it God. The default must be simply We don't know yet. Otherwise we're displaying naked bias and sensationalism.
Great episode!
Could it not just be a blackhole eating its enrergy away??
Vasto Lorde I think a black hole would be observable due to gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing has not been observed.
A blackhole eating a star emits tons of radiations, which hasn't been observed
Here's an idea about tabby's star. There's a small black hole orbiting the star draining it and making it dim over time. the speed of the dimming changes because of an elongated orbit. the black hole has been consuming the solar system and causing havoc. consuming planets, changing orbits to cause collisions, and making debris fields would explain the flickering.
Dyson sphere is an unrealistic fairy-tale for kids. Probably just a bunch of space junk like comets leftovers orbiting around this star. Nothing new.
Elena Gilbert no. No it isn't
Within the known laws of physics, it is pretty unrealistic. It can inspire children (and adults) towards an interest in science and space, but 'fairy-tale' is not that far off.
Elena Gilbert "Dyson sphere is an unrealistic fairy-tale for kids"
In which reality?
Elena Gilbert how's that magical coma going for you
Actually, a dyson swarm (as opposed to a dyson sphere) is very possible. It's just that it would need us to dismantle a planet or something like that to create it. Saying it is unrealistic is thus false, saying it is a wet dream for teenagers with grand dreams and interested in space and you're probably correct. If the star is something new is hard to say. But from our perspective it is. Sure, it probably won't be that spectular as most people believe it to be but it brings some interest and life into space again. I have to say, that's making it a lot more entertaining and interesting for people instead of dismissing everything you encounter because it might be ordinary. I'm not saying you're incorrect by looking at it rationally, but sometimes it makes life just so boring.
It's important to remember that the giant simulation that makes up existence probably has a least one mod who likes to mess with us from time to time.
LOOL it being a Dyson Sphere makes so much sense. First of it would explain the randomness in the dimming, but then it would also explain why the star get's dimmer and dimmer. Since you know, they are not finished building the sphere and as they progress they harnss more and more light from their star.
Mystery solved.
"Strange signals coming from the star" it's The Message. (Starset Society will understand)
Not to come off as ignorant or whatever but can someone explain to me why the dimming can't just be that Tabby's star has been moving away from us?
Fun fact: the Kepler telescope is travelling at a speed of 5.892 kilometres per SECOND in an Earth trailing orbit, ie is not orbiting the Earth so Earth does not block the telescope's view.
Even more surprisingly the paint on the rocket survived the capsule's booster.
Pretty interesting news overal.
Start the whole new, sci show physics please!!!
Blue Origin is such a cute tabby rocket
0:10 congratulations to whoever built that Moon-sized telescope in greenland
Scishow; I'm fine with pre-roll ads, but there was an ad before this video about "Cosmic Disclosure," which apparently is a film about a secret space program to the center of the earth? I don't know how youtube's ad algorithm functions, but that seems like as inappropriate a pairing of ad to video content as you could possibly have.
I find it strange how everyone reporing on what's going on with Tabby's star is making it sound like this is all happening right now... what we're seeing happened nearly 1500 years ago.
The aliens are just partying around the star with their DJ,just like humans getting insane with Skrillex's drops.
As if its a comet that's broken up, It's been dimming for decades. There's something definetley gong on there. It's extremely strange.
I've never seen someone so excited about the possibility of finding terrible, solar-system-destroying, potentially hostile lifeforms.
Been dreaming about this all year.
It wouldn't be too far a reach to imagine some form of alien life develope and thrive in a star. We're not the universal standard, just because something is bad for us doesn't mean it'll go the same for everyone.
i know.. its STARKILLER BASE ... WATCH OUT!!
The cost for tickets will probably be... astronomically expensive.
SciShow is getting more and more sensational every episode. Don't succumb to the tabloid trap!
Deploying their version of a Dyson sphere. Nice. Or could it be a mini black hole in the center of the star feasting away?
More likely a Dyson Swarm. If this is actually the case, they started to build it over 1600 years ago, so they're likely already having a decent swarm by now. Maybe we hear something from them one day.
The designer of the Blue Origins rocket shape had short comings he didn't want to talk about!!
Blue origin looks remarkably phallic
That spaceship will penetrate the surface of space technology.
Perhaps it's a new and reasonably rare type of variable star...not a Cepheid variable, but something conceptually similar. We're relatively new to observing the Universe around us with the degree of precision extant, so perhaps this is why we've never noted another like this before.
I was eating a bowl of cereal while watching this episode and I spilt milk all over my self dang it.