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Made in us
Depraved Slaanesh Chaos Lord




Inside Yvraine

The snappily named KIC 8462852 star lies just above the Milky Way between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. It first attracted the attention of astronomers in 2009 when the Kepler Space Telescope identified it as a candidate for having orbiting Earth-like planets.

But KIC 8462852 was emitting a stranger light pattern than any of the other stars in Kepler’s search for habitable planets.

Tabetha Boyajian, a postdoc at Yale told The Atlantic: “We’d never seen anything like this star. It was really weird. We thought it might be bad data or movement on the spacecraft, but everything checked out.”


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/forget-water-on-mars-astronomers-may-have-just-found-giant-alien-megastructures-orbiting-a-star-near-a6693886.html?fb_action_ids=10153659505513523&fb_action_types=og.shares

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/

I always thought my generation was too old to explore the seas and too young to explore the void, but this could be it boys!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/15 00:38:56


 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka






Larry Niven was right!

"The Omnissiah is my Moderati" 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





dead account

 Alex C wrote:
Larry Niven was right!


Have an exalt!
   
Made in us
Colonel





This Is Where the Fish Lives

No, no, no, and no.

Goddammit, I hate science stories when they're reported by non-scientists. The paper written by the team of astronomers that describe this odd star don't mention aliens directly or even imply that it's aliens.

 d-usa wrote:
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Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Megastructures..... what the heck does that even mean in this story?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/15 01:30:56


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Made in us
Ultramarine Librarian with Freaky Familiar





Southern California, USA

Where's that picture of that weird guy from Ancient Aliens when you need it?

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Dakka Veteran




Now this is what I'm talking about. Color me interested
   
Made in us
Thane of Dol Guldur




 Easy E wrote:
Megastructures..... what the heck does that even mean in this story?


I don't know, but they sound big, and therefore obviously could only be the result of a super race of techno-giants, or maybe Goddidit.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/10/15 01:41:49


 
   
Made in us
Douglas Bader






 Easy E wrote:
Megastructures..... what the heck does that even mean in this story?


"Someone built a ringworld."

Which, by the way, is how you can tell that the article is almost guaranteed to be a non-scientist wildly exaggerating what the legitimate research actually found.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/15 01:59:39


There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
Made in us
[DCM]
.







So what are they saying they think it is then?
   
Made in us
Douglas Bader






 Alpharius wrote:
So what are they saying they think it is then?


The original scientist said "we don't really know, we're working on it." A group of questionable scientific legitimacy said "there's a chance that this could be aliens, we'll look at it." The article describing the discovery presented it as "it's probably a ringworld".

There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
Made in us
Depraved Slaanesh Chaos Lord




Inside Yvraine

 Alpharius wrote:
So what are they saying they think it is then?
I imagine the "real scientist" guess at this point would be that it's "possibly something... we've maybe not seen before, maybe."

Because that's generally just how scientists articulate their guesses. And then they wonder why "people aren't interested in NASA anymore!"

EDIT- Ninja'd. heh.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/10/15 02:16:50


 
   
Made in jp
Fixture of Dakka





Japan

Deathstar! has been found!

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Lady of the Lake






 Easy E wrote:
Megastructures..... what the heck does that even mean in this story?


I'll translate for them..
"GIVE ME CLICKS AND AD REVENUE!!!"

   
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Rotting Sorcerer of Nurgle






The Dog-house

Bullgak. No visual evidence to back up claims. Pics or it didnt happen

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Regular Dakkanaut




Hiding behind terrain

Im not getting my hopes up for space structures. It sounded like its just planetary debris from a large impact with a passing asteroid or something.
   
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That's no moon...

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4th Obelisk On The Right

I figured Microsoft wasn't going to pull punches with Halo 5's ad campaign but I never thought they would build actual halos...

 
   
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Hiding behind terrain

 BrotherGecko wrote:
I figured Microsoft wasn't going to pull punches with Halo 5's ad campaign but I never thought they would build actual halos...


You just made me picture Microsoft building a real halo to kill off Sony fanboys and starve Sony like the flood, only for the halo to malfunction and have a massive red ring of death glowing around its side as a beacon of failure across the galaxy.
   
Made in de
Experienced Maneater






Whatever it turns out to be, it will be interesting and I don't quite understand that people can't wait before jumping to conclusions. Sure, it might not be aliens, but it also might be. Might be something different we have never encountered before and might teach us more about the universe. I'm excited about it
   
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[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer






Somewhere in south-central England.

It sounds like a very large, dense asteroid belt, but they don't think such a formation could exist because it would be swept away by agglomeration over time. However this could simply be an error in the current theory of how solar systems get formed.

I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

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-

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Where's that picture of that weird guy from Ancient Aliens when you need it?


Exactly!

I've been waiting for that as well. Where the hell is it?

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deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
Made in us
Blood-Raging Khorne Berserker





I don't even KNOW anymore.

 Easy E wrote:
Megastructures..... what the heck does that even mean in this story?


Monoliths. Stay away from Europa.
   
Made in us
Thane of Dol Guldur




Dyson Sphere under construction.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






New Orleans, LA

I like the 2-stars-nearly-collided theory.

Boyajian, the Yale Postdoc who oversees Planet Hunters, recently published a paper describing the star’s bizarre light pattern. Several of the citizen scientists are named as co-authors. The paper explores a number of scenarios that might explain the pattern—instrument defects; the shrapnel from an asteroid belt pileup; an impact of planetary scale, like the one that created our moon.

The paper finds each explanation wanting, save for one. If another star had passed through the unusual star’s system, it could have yanked a sea of comets inward. Provided there were enough of them, the comets could have made the dimming pattern.



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Glorious Lord of Chaos






The burning pits of Hades, also known as Sweden in summer

Ah, have we finally found the mass relays?

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Wight Lord with the Sword of Kings






North of your position

 BrotherGecko wrote:
I figured Microsoft wasn't going to pull punches with Halo 5's ad campaign but I never thought they would build actual halos...

It's not something that would surprise me nowadays.

   
Made in ca
Grizzled MkII Monster Veteran




Toronto, Ontario

Can't be bothered to join in the clickbaiting, but from the article I read, they had several possible explanations, including a surprisingly dense asteroid field, though this was noted as odd because that's usually found in younger solar systems, and this was apparently an older one (the material expected to be drawn in eventually). Possibly tied to a massive planetary collision (such as the one that is theorized to have created our moon).

Yes, obviously jumping to "I'm not saying it's Aliens, but it's Aliens" guy is premature.

But it sounds like there's something that can't easily be explained out there, and if that means someone built a ringworld or whatever, I'm all about it.

For those asking, in terms of 'megastructures' they're talking about something built in space on such a massive scale it would block a noticeable portion of light generated by a Star, which as we know are "really fething big", which would require immense materials, infrastructure, and advanced science on a scale we're not remotely close to, so if that were the case, it'd be pretty exciting.

Pointing a couple of radio telescopes at the area and seeing if anything shows up should be interesting.
   
Made in us
Pragmatic Primus Commanding Cult Forces






Southeastern PA, USA

Yeah. I'm gonna go with the idea that it's a bunch of rocks or something.

Because we know there are bunches of rocks and stuff in space. And we have no evidence that even microbial life exists outside our planet, let alone superadvanced sci-fi aliens wrapping stars in manufactured objects.

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Made in us
Rotting Sorcerer of Nurgle






The Dog-house

If it were aliens with that technology level, wouldnt they have come after us? Who in the right mind would want to trade and have relations with humans? All we know how to do is kill each other and start wars

H.B.M.C.- The end hath come! From now on armies will only consist of Astorath, Land Speeder Storms and Soul Grinders!
War Kitten- Vanden, you just taunted the Dank Lord Ezra. Prepare for seven years of fighting reality...
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Neronoxx- If our Dreadnought doesn't have sick scuplted abs, we riot.
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