+slevin parker If they were smart enough to create such a structure, than they're probably smart enough to not have any money system like we, the stupid humans, have.
Fraser, you guys should do a video about the perspective of the universe from different locations! So for example, Earth is in a relatively "boring" part of the galaxy, but what would the universe look like to a civilization that lives near a nebula? Or at the edge of the galaxy? Just different scenarios like that would be cool to learn about.
There's a flaw in your logic though: if it's not an alien megastructure but a destroyed planet, then who built the Death Star that destroyed the planet in the first place? Exactly.
Astronomers use the lack of Inferred radiation to disqualify the idea that its an artificial structure. However I would say that if you had the engineering chops to build something like that, you would be efficient enough that said structure wouldn't leak anything.
i don't think so, I simply think that any culture that capable of something like that would understand the universe around them in ways that make no sense to us. A civilization that is building something like that would be thousands of years ahead of us.
+Jefferson Carvalho you cannot hide infrared radiation? we can do that on a small scale now. Why would we consider civilization which is able to build alien megastructures to have bigger problems with that? Also they would not need to cover even 100%, but enough to make our weak telescopes to consider result as a cold gass cloud instead of super hot galaxy full of stars
What's missing from the conversation are the simulations that actually reproduce the light-curves that were seen. It's very simple to do: simulate a star with a white circle in an image, then move objects in front of it to simulate a transit. At regular intervals add up the total number of white pixels during transit divided by the number of white pixels during no transit. I did this in Unity, a free game development program and the results were interesting: the best fit was a rotating giant disk (or square, actually, shape didn't matter as much as the rotation.)
You don't worry about it. A lot of the orbitals will be habitats, collecting their own energy for their own purposes. It would be like a huge number of city states, rather than an energy collection mechanism for one planet. The planet could conceivably have been dismantled for materials, as well as the rest of the system. It takes a LOT of mass for a Dyson swarm.
I know how mind bogglingly unlikely it is but I really really want to go with the Dyson Swarm idea. Aside from being the coolest possibility it also answers Fermi's question with "Over there".
There are two assumptions we are making. 1. This isn't some astronomical phenomenon we haven't yet discovered and 2. Our understanding of astro-engineering is complete enough to rule out technologies and techniques that to us seem impossible. "Much to learn we still have" - Yoda
Hi, Fraser! In several of your videos you say that we would be able to detect infrared leaking from megastructures, but isn’t it plausible that an advanced civilization capable of building such structures might be able to prevent this leakage?
Hi Fraser, A paper recently went up on the arXiv that suggested the proposed century long dimming was just a data artefact due to improper calibration: arxiv.org/abs/1601.07314 If this is the case, the comet hypothesis could still hold.
ok, the question is 'what are alien megastructure' but another, in my opinion more interesting question is 'what does an alien megastructure means' because, if some aliens must collect sunrays to stay alive it means neither cold nor warm fusion will ever work, it also means warp drives will never work, it also means they do not manage to have any birth control, it means even aliens are not able to live in harmony with nature and it also means, since there is only one of those occurrences in the universe alien life forms are pretty scarce
Hey Fraser. Sorry if this has been asked already (I didn't see it), but I was wondering... Does (paraphrasing) _"Jupiter would only block out ~1% of the sun's light"_ ... mean that: 1. _Jupiter _*_as is_*_ would only block out ~1% of the sun's light to a distant observer_ ? Or 2. _Jupiter, _*_if it were right up next to our sun like an alien megastructure would be_*_ would block out only ~1% of our sun's light from a distant observer_ ? I know the sun is *real big*, even compared to Jupiter (obviously), but Jupiter is *really* far from the sun _(to our sissy little human brains)_, so I'm pretty surprised that - at its present location - it would even block out _that_ much! Does the (true) distance between Jupiter and the sun - _Which seems really far to us_ - just not matter to an observer so incomprehensibly far away?
Wondering if we know the objects distance from its star and it's approximate size in relation to the star. Is it rotating around the star or stationary. If it is of artificial structure, it could be of much greater size than a normal planet and still maintain it's constant distance from the star and block part of it's light.
Fraser, is this an older video? I thought this had been solved partly at least, and turned out to be most likely a swarm of asteroids and gas? Do you know the age of the star in queston?
Wouldn't building a Dyson sphere be like expecting a balloon not to pop while forcing air into it? I mean, all that outward pressure from a star would not able to be contained, right? It would be like a pressure cooker in there until it popped. Yea? No?
Nice video, I just subscribed! Really interesting and well explain stuff. I just have a little problem with your thought on could it be an Alien structure or not. You say there's like zero chance it could be alien. But then afterward, you say it wouldn't be too complicated to create such a structure, that you only need good engineer and lots of ressource .. So tell me, IF there would be a civilisation let's say.. 1000 years older than us, don't you think they'd figure out how to create such a structure? I mean, like you said, if it's some kind of giant solar panel use to provides energy, wouldn't it be logicall for a more advance civilisation to try to exploit their sun ? I don't get how people still thinks we're the more advance civilisation, that there's no alien, probably only bacteria... I mean come on. How many earth like-planet do we've found in our OWN galaxy ? Millions ? And yet, how many galaxy do we think there is ? Billions ? Do your maths.. It's pretty obvious. I personally think it scares people to find out we're not the smartest beam living. Sorry guys, we're not as smart as you think we are.
My guess would be that our models of stellar structure and evolution are still too incomplete, and this is just some sort of weird variable star. Something like a flare, but dimmer rather than brighter, would seem much more likely than a megastructure.
I am very sure, that it has to do with the activity of the star. Maybe a giant Sunspot, that varies in size over time and the star is turning. This would explain the repeated dimming.
Planet getting too close being in the process of being boiled off or torn apart sounds reasonable. Definitely needs more study, it's the strange stuff that one can learn something new from.
Isn't the observable universe too large for us to say conclusively that alien megastructures are nowhere? How comprehensive were the surveys which looked for infrared light? It would seem that even a K3 galaxy would be a needle in a haystack considering the size of the universe, and even K2 stars might be out there; we just haven't found one yet.
Of course, but as you do bigger and bigger surveys you would expect to see even one. Especially if K3 civilizations can move from galaxy to galaxy which would still be permitted by the laws of physics.
unless they don't want to be found to spur competition and alarm. They could have used technological singularities to figure out ways to not be detected by low level civilizations... Don't wana scare the prey?
i mean yeah they could have us on "farm" potentially if we just go wild with the imagination and that is they're aim. I think the aim is more. galactic structure maybe fans of stars
Honestly I really just want it to be a dyson sphere. Imagine the implications that that would entail. It could mean the opportunity to finally discover or contact extra terrestrial life and that would be hella wicked!!
speaking of stars i've got a question how massive or hot would a star need to be to have a lifespan equal to that of a human? would it even be possible for such a star to exist? my guess would be that the answer is no
I dont understand why look for infra-red light. Why would they let the infra-red radiation escape? wouldn't they want to use every bit of energy they could possibly get?
Fraser Cain Yeah, I've been watching a bunch of the megastructure videos. I'm kind of wondering why we don't do something like orbital powersats, collecting solar light in space then beaming it down as diffused microwave light. I haven't researched yet, I don't know if it's practical.
Something between us and the star that's moving towards us? Is that possible? Would love it to be a mega structure but doubt it :( also is it possible if aliens were advanced enough to build something like this it would be so efficient we wouldn't be able to detect its heat signature? I don't mean just this instance but more generally...
I bet some day somewhere aliens will be debating the same question about Human Megastructures! +Fraser Cain Does that count as a victory condition in the Game of Life? Humanity for the win!
I recently read somewhere that it is (in theory) possible for a black hole to orbit around a star.... Could this be the explanation? Guess it might also account for the gradual dimming of the star.
Our focus should be to get the shape of that blocked light. If it's unnatural angle in shape such as square than it must be an object made my intelligent life.
Would it make more sense for a super advanced consciousness to try and store energy instead of just collecting it at the suns pace. it would want to harvest suns and spend the energy potential of them in the most efficient way possible. can you do a video on the super void. what are the chances the middle of the super void is ground zero of a super advance sentience that has a 5billion year head start on us. and it already been harvesting suns and storing there energy for efficient use.
I feel a advanced consciousness gaining knowledge of reality would realize that the universe will end, so it would want to extend its existence as long as possible,.. and one of the first steps would be to store as much energy as it could first,.. then efficiently using that energy to prolong it consciousness and storing as much knowledge as it could for as long as possible.
+Jay F At this point id say, if one dose not know about that giant abomination, then one has either been under a rock for the past few months, or has not used the internet much in that time...
+Christiaan Corthals The star rotates once per day, whereas the light dimming events happen over many days - if it is the star dimming by 22%, then it's something we've never seen before, which still makes it worth studying :)
Why couldn't it be just a star unlike any other we know of? Perhaps it is in a unique stage of its long lifespan that we have never observed. Maybe it has unusually large temporary sun spots or solar flares. Another idea is an unusually dense asteroid belt orbiting the sun.
What if it wasn't a destroyed Dyson sphere or a megastructure or destroyed planet but a planet that was destroyed to gather the resources to build a Dyson Sphere
8 років тому
Could the earth have artificial rings made of some kind of inoffensive smoke and/or light material ejected from a human satellite/spacecraft? Or the amount of matter would make it impractical?
What I've always wondered about any of these Sun Encasing Objects is how they would avoid the effects of a large CME, or in fact the many of them they would be subjected to. It's not like a star is just going to cooperate and be restful while you build your spherical metal object around it. The whole idea just seems far fetched to me.
+Sir Daniel +simon farmer Another thing I thought of, wouldn't building an object big enough to encase a star cause it's own gravitational pull? No, it wouldn't have the mass of the star, but it's still going to be pretty dammed massive, enough so that it would probably effect the planets in the solar system. Just cascading problems, like you said "alien technology" but it just seems SO ridiculous to me. :-)
+simon farmer What if you get 3 or more at once on all blasting from different sectors around the sun? Ghaaa. That would be a very expensive junk heap. :-)
According to you yourself, planets could get to be about 80 times the size of Jupiter before they basically become stars. If Jupiter blocks out 1% of star light, doing the math, isn't it perfectly plausible that it is a planet 20 times the size of Jupiter that has a VERY slow orbit?
Maybe it is a gas giant which were consumed over last X time and during the last century consumption finished. Maybe we are looking at it wrong, the fact that we had state of the sun 50 years ago does not prove it was its "default". Excited gases sucked out from gas giant could be enough to extend surface producing brightness and could be consumed to greatly when we had good telescopes to notice any leftovers.
Fraser Cain ah yes makes sense. you should do a video on ringworlds, and how possible they could be, comparing the science fiction of the ringworld novels and games of halo.
Could it be twin star system where one is dead and blocking the light of the other.And probably they are approaching a spiraling doom which justifies the increase in dimming.
I'm assuming it's not a binary with a black hole because I'm assuming they looked for a wobble, but I might be wrong. Maybe a rogue planet got in the way of the light? But that would be a shorter time scale unless it was heading parallel to our line of sight. So it must be a local object that's occluding the view. Maybe if you're a civilization harvesting suns, it makes more sense to take the energy in bursts vs a constant flow..... For the purpose of not getting noticed? Not unlike the new star wars movie actually... You might need a quantity of power that's greater then the star can provide on a regular basis, and that could temporarily deplete a good amount of plasma from the surface of the sun. Or it's a giant solar flare. Maybe the chemical composition of this sun create significantly higher magnetic fields, which would get you bigger flares.
What if it's just a very unstable star whose brightness changes on a regular (or irregular) basis? Is that a thing?
That would be an variable star.
+Joe Scott Hi joe
+Sir Daniel I know of no variable star that behaves like that.
+Patrick Washington Why not, there are stars that change magnitude slowly over years.
+Patrick Washington / I've seen a lot of unstable stars who change on a regular basis. . . .in the Betty Ford Clinic.
Who ever built those megastructures definitely needed a small loan of a million dollars to build it
+slevin parker But where would they find the genius required to turn a small loan of $1 million into an alien mega structure worth $13.8 billion?
+Kevo F
let's make the galaxy great again
+TheAllegiantTraitor Let's build a megastructure that no-one can blow up.
+slevin parker If they were smart enough to create such a structure, than they're probably smart enough to not have any money system like we, the stupid humans, have.
+Kevo F I'd say it's more like a few quadrillions.
Fraser, you guys should do a video about the perspective of the universe from different locations! So for example, Earth is in a relatively "boring" part of the galaxy, but what would the universe look like to a civilization that lives near a nebula? Or at the edge of the galaxy? Just different scenarios like that would be cool to learn about.
I like this idea a lot. Need to find a good simulation software to help how what it would look like.
There's a flaw in your logic though: if it's not an alien megastructure but a destroyed planet, then who built the Death Star that destroyed the planet in the first place? Exactly.
+kingdomatthi Notice that channel is devoid of any activity. No videos, favorites, discussion, join data, etc but does have 34 subscribers. Creepy.
+kingdomatthi it was uploaded before, but went public later
Lars Rye Jeppesen
AKA, unlisted
RiaRadioFMHD773 yep, Patreon
RiaRadioFMHD773 By "that channel" you mean my UA-cam account that I don't use to publish videos? :)
Astronomers use the lack of Inferred radiation to disqualify the idea that its an artificial structure. However I would say that if you had the engineering chops to build something like that, you would be efficient enough that said structure wouldn't leak anything.
I thought something similar. Well put.
If so, the laws of thermodynamics are very different from reality in there. There is no way to "hide" the leak.
i don't think so, I simply think that any culture that capable of something like that would understand the universe around them in ways that make no sense to us. A civilization that is building something like that would be thousands of years ahead of us.
+DHF F A million years ahead of us-trust me if we see them they already saw us-they might be friendly using their time on technology then on war
+Jefferson Carvalho you cannot hide infrared radiation? we can do that on a small scale now. Why would we consider civilization which is able to build alien megastructures to have bigger problems with that? Also they would not need to cover even 100%, but enough to make our weak telescopes to consider result as a cold gass cloud instead of super hot galaxy full of stars
Whats causing it to dim? simple: yo mama!
Haha! thank you everybody im here all week!
+TheBritishGeek You forgot to add, "Don't forget to tip your waitresses."
kkkkk
An AWESOME video Fraser! Its soo fascinating to think of what is actually happening to that star.
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I like aliens theory the best. I know its exceedingly unlikely but you have to admit its fascinating to think that it is a possibility.
What's missing from the conversation are the simulations that actually reproduce the light-curves that were seen. It's very simple to do: simulate a star with a white circle in an image, then move objects in front of it to simulate a transit. At regular intervals add up the total number of white pixels during transit divided by the number of white pixels during no transit. I did this in Unity, a free game development program and the results were interesting: the best fit was a rotating giant disk (or square, actually, shape didn't matter as much as the rotation.)
When you capture energy in a Dyson swarm, how do you get the energy to a planet (or wherever it's owners are)?
tight beam microwaves. It's an idea that has been discussed for earth orbiting solar collectors aw well
You don't worry about it. A lot of the orbitals will be habitats, collecting their own energy for their own purposes. It would be like a huge number of city states, rather than an energy collection mechanism for one planet. The planet could conceivably have been dismantled for materials, as well as the rest of the system. It takes a LOT of mass for a Dyson swarm.
Do you have an update video for this topic?
No, we covered it on the Weekly Space Hangout and on Universe Today. It looks like it's just dust.
I know how mind bogglingly unlikely it is but I really really want to go with the Dyson Swarm idea. Aside from being the coolest possibility it also answers Fermi's question with "Over there".
It would be great to have an answer to the Fermi Paradox, but I suspect it won't be that easy to find aliens.
Could you talk about Dark Flow??
We started our civilizations huddled around campfires with just the embers of a dying flame; it seems we may end our existence in a similar fashion.
Fraser, your videos are really great and extremely intriguing...
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed them!
There are two assumptions we are making. 1. This isn't some astronomical phenomenon we haven't yet discovered and 2. Our understanding of astro-engineering is complete enough to rule out technologies and techniques that to us seem impossible.
"Much to learn we still have" - Yoda
It’s truly incredible that one day we will be able to build these megastructures
5:30 It's spelled "Bungie" not "Bungee"
+Götterdämmerung nope!
+Prof. Michael O. Zimmermann JCD ECS Yes it is.
+Prof. Michael O. Zimmermann JCD ECS en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungie
nope
apburner1 images from halo
studio = bungie
im not sure if you're a troll or stupid :p
+apburner1
Maybe he didn't? Inclusive or is the standard in logic.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_disjunction
We're gonna call them.. megastructures. And aliens will call them.. alien megastructures
In the end... we were the aliens all along.
Or put another way, One xenomorph's megastructure is another xenomorph's alien megastructure
I think it's the paparazzi. They're always hovering around stars. In fact, the bigger the star, the more paparazzi there is.
Since you recorded this, they've named KIC 8462852 Tabby's Star.
Yup, we've talked with several of the team members on the Weekly Space Hangout now.
If only we had the imagination to build such structures!
Great vid!
good thing u r back to ur usual videos
Hi, Fraser! In several of your videos you say that we would be able to detect infrared leaking from megastructures, but isn’t it plausible that an advanced civilization capable of building such structures might be able to prevent this leakage?
Hi Fraser,
A paper recently went up on the arXiv that suggested the proposed century long dimming was just a data artefact due to improper calibration: arxiv.org/abs/1601.07314
If this is the case, the comet hypothesis could still hold.
Awesome keep them coming please
More coming...
Would like to hear your thoughts on the asteroid passing us on the 5th of March.
Well, here we are, and nothing happened.
Yes,
ok, the question is 'what are alien megastructure' but another, in my opinion more interesting question is 'what does an alien megastructure means'
because, if some aliens must collect sunrays to stay alive it means neither cold nor warm fusion will ever work, it also means warp drives will never work, it also means they do not manage to have any birth control, it means even aliens are not able to live in harmony with nature and it also means, since there is only one of those occurrences in the universe alien life forms are pretty scarce
Hey Fraser. Sorry if this has been asked already (I didn't see it), but I was wondering...
Does (paraphrasing) _"Jupiter would only block out ~1% of the sun's light"_ ... mean that:
1. _Jupiter _*_as is_*_ would only block out ~1% of the sun's light to a distant observer_ ?
Or
2. _Jupiter, _*_if it were right up next to our sun like an alien megastructure would be_*_ would block out only ~1% of our sun's light from a distant observer_ ?
I know the sun is *real big*, even compared to Jupiter (obviously), but Jupiter is *really* far from the sun _(to our sissy little human brains)_, so I'm pretty surprised that - at its present location - it would even block out _that_ much!
Does the (true) distance between Jupiter and the sun - _Which seems really far to us_ - just not matter to an observer so incomprehensibly far away?
Wondering if we know the objects distance from its star and it's approximate size in relation to the star. Is it rotating around the star or stationary. If it is of artificial structure, it could be of much greater size than a normal planet and still maintain it's constant distance from the star and block part of it's light.
Fraser, is this an older video? I thought this had been solved partly at least, and turned out to be most likely a swarm of asteroids and gas? Do you know the age of the star in queston?
Wouldn't building a Dyson sphere be like expecting a balloon not to pop while forcing air into it? I mean, all that outward pressure from a star would not able to be contained, right? It would be like a pressure cooker in there until it popped. Yea? No?
With our physics and what we know it wouldnt work. But we know almost nothing about the universe, so maybe there is a material and a way to do it.
Any possibility it is a black hole getting closer in proximity to the star causing it to dim as it gets closer?
Astronomer have looked into this kind of thing and ruled it out.
Nice video, I just subscribed! Really interesting and well explain stuff. I just have a little problem with your thought on could it be an Alien structure or not. You say there's like zero chance it could be alien. But then afterward, you say it wouldn't be too complicated to create such a structure, that you only need good engineer and lots of ressource .. So tell me, IF there would be a civilisation let's say.. 1000 years older than us, don't you think they'd figure out how to create such a structure? I mean, like you said, if it's some kind of giant solar panel use to provides energy, wouldn't it be logicall for a more advance civilisation to try to exploit their sun ? I don't get how people still thinks we're the more advance civilisation, that there's no alien, probably only bacteria... I mean come on. How many earth like-planet do we've found in our OWN galaxy ? Millions ? And yet, how many galaxy do we think there is ? Billions ? Do your maths.. It's pretty obvious. I personally think it scares people to find out we're not the smartest beam living. Sorry guys, we're not as smart as you think we are.
How would such a megastructure look from the inside?
what would i be like to look up in the sky while earth orbits inside a dyson swarm/sphere?
Earth isn't in the structure. Earth is Probably long dead by then. YOU live inside the structure, ON its walls essentially
You would probably see an uncountable number of space colonies with huge solar panels.
cool that you're recording outside
My guess would be that our models of stellar structure and evolution are still too incomplete, and this is just some sort of weird variable star. Something like a flare, but dimmer rather than brighter, would seem much more likely than a megastructure.
There's a kickstarter that raised money to figure out what's going on. www.kickstarter.com/projects/608159144/the-most-mysterious-star-in-the-galaxy
Two years have passed, are there new information available about that star?
Yes, it's a cloud of dust. earthsky.org/space/kic-8462852-tabbys-star-no-alien-megastructure
"Every jewel of energy"....haha I'm picturing humanity collecting stars and suffering from Arkenstone madness.
Well, also the "joules".
Is it possible to have a rogue planet closer to us, causing this dimming? Or what about a stellar remnant orbiting this start?
I am very sure, that it has to do with the activity of the star. Maybe a giant Sunspot, that varies in size over time and the star is turning. This would explain the repeated dimming.
+Grosser Salat just saw that gallantcp was faster with this idea.
So can anyone disprove this theory for us?
The bible doesn't mention it
+Grosser Salat Wikipedia says the star rotates once every 0.8797 days.
+Saturn Well there goes the theory.
+Saturn Well, ok. Thx 4 reply!
schkadov thrusters are my best explanation for the ring galaxy.
So they're rearranging an entire galaxy into a ring. I wonder what the best structure would be?
well that question's pretty much meaningless without knowledge of what their purpose is, don'tcha think?
Maybe there's a smudge on the lens?
Hah, I think the astronomers would catch that.
Planet getting too close being in the process of being boiled off or torn apart sounds reasonable. Definitely needs more study, it's the strange stuff that one can learn something new from.
could it be a companion drown dwarf?
This would be an idea that astronomers considered and couldn't find evidence for.
Isn't the observable universe too large for us to say conclusively that alien megastructures are nowhere? How comprehensive were the surveys which looked for infrared light? It would seem that even a K3 galaxy would be a needle in a haystack considering the size of the universe, and even K2 stars might be out there; we just haven't found one yet.
Of course, but as you do bigger and bigger surveys you would expect to see even one. Especially if K3 civilizations can move from galaxy to galaxy which would still be permitted by the laws of physics.
Well obviously I like the idea of aliens the most, but I also doubt that it's going to turn out to be extraterrestrials.
Aliens would be amazing, and change everything. But yeah, it's almost certainly not aliens.
unless they don't want to be found to spur competition and alarm. They could have used technological singularities to figure out ways to not be detected by low level civilizations... Don't wana scare the prey?
+Fraser Cain If that was true they'd already have us beat, seeing as they're able to plan thousands of years into the future.
i mean yeah they could have us on "farm" potentially if we just go wild with the imagination and that is they're aim. I think the aim is more. galactic structure maybe fans of stars
Honestly I really just want it to be a dyson sphere. Imagine the implications that that would entail. It could mean the opportunity to finally discover or contact extra terrestrial life and that would be hella wicked!!
speaking of stars i've got a question how massive or hot would a star need to be to have a lifespan equal to that of a human? would it even be possible for such a star to exist? my guess would be that the answer is no
I dont understand why look for infra-red light. Why would they let the infra-red radiation escape? wouldn't they want to use every bit of energy they could possibly get?
If you don't let the heat out then you cook. Eventually the region inside your Dyson sphere would be as hot as the surface of the star, or hotter.
great video
Woot! Halo hell yeah!
Hah, yeah. :-)
Fraser Cain
Yeah, I've been watching a bunch of the megastructure videos. I'm kind of wondering why we don't do something like orbital powersats, collecting solar light in space then beaming it down as diffused microwave light. I haven't researched yet, I don't know if it's practical.
Something between us and the star that's moving towards us? Is that possible? Would love it to be a mega structure but doubt it :( also is it possible if aliens were advanced enough to build something like this it would be so efficient we wouldn't be able to detect its heat signature? I don't mean just this instance but more generally...
It was a Massive death star passing through.
That would definitely qualify as an alien megastructure.
Fraser Cain Unless we build it first. I don't wanna be speaking Klingon, so let's get to work.
I bet some day somewhere aliens will be debating the same question about Human Megastructures! +Fraser Cain Does that count as a victory condition in the Game of Life? Humanity for the win!
Which theory do I like best? Aliens, of course! But like you and so many others said, it's probably not aliens.
I recently read somewhere that it is (in theory) possible for a black hole to orbit around a star.... Could this be the explanation? Guess it might also account for the gradual dimming of the star.
+Mike Thompson
i don't think so. the matter falling into the black hole would be probably shining even brighter than the star itself.
@FraserCain the picture you showed owes credit to Bungie, not Bungee!
Megastructures emits lots of infrared.
If "it" does *not emit infrared* , it is not a megastructure.
You've got to let that heat get out somehow.
It's probably a star killer base, like in star wars. that thing drains the power of the sun, and that is the reason the star is dimming.
It just take 100 year to gather up all the material from the star before it can fire.
Our focus should be to get the shape of that blocked light. If it's unnatural angle in shape such as square than it must be an object made my intelligent life.
My bet is on: Blackhole Binary.
Isn't it possible that the slow dimming over the last 100 years, and the events Kepler observed (15 percent and 22 percent dim) are not related?
how do we know whats going on allot of light years away because it takes time fore light to reach us so we see those stars how they where years ago
Would it make more sense for a super advanced consciousness to try and store energy instead of just collecting it at the suns pace. it would want to harvest suns and spend the energy potential of them in the most efficient way possible. can you do a video on the super void. what are the chances the middle of the super void is ground zero of a super advance sentience that has a 5billion year head start on us. and it already been harvesting suns and storing there energy for efficient use.
I feel a advanced consciousness gaining knowledge of reality would realize that the universe will end, so it would want to extend its existence as long as possible,.. and one of the first steps would be to store as much energy as it could first,.. then efficiently using that energy to prolong it consciousness and storing as much knowledge as it could for as long as possible.
Maybe the Imperial star killer was not fictional in the latest star wars movie.
+Terry Turner Fucking SPOILER!!!!
+Jay F At this point id say, if one dose not know about that giant abomination, then one has either been under a rock for the past few months, or has not used the internet much in that time...
***** Yeah I sort of knew about it, confirmation is always a joy though isn't it. Bruce Willis is a ghost all along Terry Turner.
Too potential possibilities are perhaps there's something happening with relation to a brown dwarf or a developing black hole.
We're just going to need more data.
How exactly could they know it's something blocking, so around or in front of the star, and not the star itself fluctuating?
+Christiaan Corthals The star rotates once per day, whereas the light dimming events happen over many days - if it is the star dimming by 22%, then it's something we've never seen before, which still makes it worth studying :)
Could be comets and the axis would moving.
Is it possible that new planets are starting to form?
I remember that episode of TNG... it had Scotty.
could it be just a "dark" object that is just on the line of sight to the star but it is much closer?
I’ve seen the Death Star, definitely Death Star.
That's no moon.
Sweet use of memes bro😁
I've got all the memes.
Why couldn't it be just a star unlike any other we know of? Perhaps it is in a unique stage of its long lifespan that we have never observed. Maybe it has unusually large temporary sun spots or solar flares. Another idea is an unusually dense asteroid belt orbiting the sun.
What if it wasn't a destroyed Dyson sphere or a megastructure or destroyed planet but a planet that was destroyed to gather the resources to build a Dyson Sphere
Could the earth have artificial rings made of some kind of inoffensive smoke and/or light material ejected from a human satellite/spacecraft? Or the amount of matter would make it impractical?
Slowly dimming over the last century? Maybe they have been building it over the years.
That would explain why the star is getting dimmer. Construction is getting completed.
What I've always wondered about any of these Sun Encasing Objects is how they would avoid the effects of a large CME, or in fact the many of them they would be subjected to. It's not like a star is just going to cooperate and be restful while you build your spherical metal object around it. The whole idea just seems far fetched to me.
We don't know alien technology ;)
+Krommer1000 Maybe they rotate the giant structure to avoid unwanted CME, might explain the light curve :)
+Sir Daniel +simon farmer Another thing I thought of, wouldn't building an object big enough to encase a star cause it's own gravitational pull? No, it
wouldn't have the mass of the star, but it's still going to be pretty
dammed massive, enough so that it would probably effect the planets in
the solar system. Just cascading problems, like you said "alien technology" but it just seems SO ridiculous to me. :-)
+simon farmer What if you get 3 or more at once on all blasting from different sectors around the sun? Ghaaa. That would be a very expensive junk heap. :-)
According to you yourself, planets could get to be about 80 times the size of Jupiter before they basically become stars.
If Jupiter blocks out 1% of star light, doing the math, isn't it perfectly plausible that it is a planet 20 times the size of Jupiter that has a VERY slow orbit?
Maybe it is a gas giant which were consumed over last X time and during the last century consumption finished. Maybe we are looking at it wrong, the fact that we had state of the sun 50 years ago does not prove it was its "default". Excited gases sucked out from gas giant could be enough to extend surface producing brightness and could be consumed to greatly when we had good telescopes to notice any leftovers.
Why wouldn't aliens also capture the infra red light as well?
You can capture some of it, but some has to escape.
Maybe it's just a binary star, with one being a normal star, and the other one being a very large brown dwarf.
Maybe, but these are the kinds of things they've ruled out.
Fraser, I'm not a sceptic by nature, but a realistic optimist (hehe). Therefore, I HOPE it is an alien megastructure ;-)
It is usually not aliens, until its aliens :D
I wana know what that huge orb tethered to the sun was..an all the smaller alien like ships recently seen near the sun!?
Which orb?
Fraser Cain there all over the internet it was the size of the earth!! They claim it was a magnetic bubble?
is it a halo ring? like from the game halo? or a ringworld?
It would be more of a cloud of satellites, nothing in a rigid shell.
Fraser Cain ah yes makes sense. you should do a video on ringworlds, and how possible they could be, comparing the science fiction of the ringworld novels and games of halo.
wouldnt you think an advance civilization actually has technology that uses less energy?
Halo ring credit: Bungie?
You mean 343 Industries?
Could it be twin star system where one is dead and blocking the light of the other.And probably they are approaching a spiraling doom which justifies the increase in dimming.
I suspect that's the kind of thing astronomers have thought of.
So, the Aliens have been capable of build a Mega structure but unable to Communicate with us, which is WAY more simple than Such Mega Structure.
have you ever thought about the possibility aliens did make contact with us
but of course government covered it up to avoid mass panic and confusions
Have you ever thought about the possibility aliens consider us unworthy of contact?
It's probably not aliens but still it's aliens.
It's not not aliens.
You're not saying its aliens... but it's aliens!
gravity lensing?
A gravity lens would only brighten briefly during an alignment between the foreground object and background object.
Up coming! Does Earth have rings! Yes but they are feint.
I'm assuming it's not a binary with a black hole because I'm assuming they looked for a wobble, but I might be wrong. Maybe a rogue planet got in the way of the light? But that would be a shorter time scale unless it was heading parallel to our line of sight. So it must be a local object that's occluding the view.
Maybe if you're a civilization harvesting suns, it makes more sense to take the energy in bursts vs a constant flow..... For the purpose of not getting noticed? Not unlike the new star wars movie actually... You might need a quantity of power that's greater then the star can provide on a regular basis, and that could temporarily deplete a good amount of plasma from the surface of the sun.
Or it's a giant solar flare. Maybe the chemical composition of this sun create significantly higher magnetic fields, which would get you bigger flares.
I'm not saying it's aliens. (But it's aliens) 🤞
It's never aliens (until it is).
Wouldn't an unknown binary black hole both block light from the star and cause it to dim over time?
Swag Shades, that's what making it dimmer.