Post by swamprat on Dec 24, 2019 23:50:27 GMT
Disappearing stars could lead to extraterrestrials
By Antwan Echeverria | December 24, 2019
Something strange is happening in our sky. Almost 100 stars seem to be missing.
They have not become nova. Nor have they become black holes. Since there is no natural explanation, some astronomers see aliens.
In 2015, a group of citizen astronomers made the world aware of KIC 8462852, which quickly became known as Tabby’s Star. It flickered. Erratic. Dramatically.
21 other stars were found to behave in the same seemingly unnatural way.
In 2016, however, Swedish astronomers noticed nothing.
It was nothing where something should be.
A star was gone.
Without any trace.
Three years later, they discovered that at least 100 more were missing.
“As long as a star does not collapse directly into a black hole, no physical process is known through which it could physically disappear,” says the study.
“If there are such examples, it is interesting to look for new exotic phenomena or even signs of technologically advanced civilizations.”
Who turned off the lights?
Stockholm University and the Canary Islands Institute for Astrophysics have tracked nothing in space in 2016.
At that time, they compared a photo of the constellation Lupus the Wolf from the 1950s with a more contemporary image. The image of the 1950s showed a star. The new one didn’t.
But there was no sign of a supernova. No signs of a collapsing, cooling shell.
This shouldn’t be possible.
But this impossible is becoming increasingly common.
They published their results and decided to get to the bottom of it.
Four years later, they are even more confused.
The project “Disappearing and Appearing Sources During a Century of Observation” (VASCO) was started in 2017 to search the space for these strange stars. It compared the latest Pan-STARRS sky survey with sky maps and images created over the past 100 years.
Her follow-up study was just published in Astronomical diary.
A total of 600 million objects were identified.
The researchers found 151,193 anomalies.
Only 23,667 of them have been examined so far.
Most of them were just distortions like lens flare or passing insects. Others were asteroids or fast-moving stars.
But 100 cannot be explained yet.
“The implications of finding such objects range from traditional astrophysical fields to exotic searches for evidence of technologically advanced civilizations,” the researchers wrote.
RED TRANSIENTS
The VASCO astronomers ask: Are these just stars?
At first they look like dark red dots in the darkness of space.
Then they start to get lighter. Much brighter. Some peaks are several thousand times brighter.
Then they disappear.
Stars don’t just disappear.
However, they burn out. And even then they don’t go into the night meekly. They can slowly burn down to the level of a white dwarf star. You can go out with a bang as a supernova. Or they could collapse inwards and become a black hole.
But no white dwarfs can be seen where the red stars used to be.
There are no obvious signs of a nova.
And black hole collapses are said to be extremely rare.
“We are very happy to be able to track the 100 red transients found,” said project manager Beatriz Villarroel.
“However, we are aware that none of these events show direct signs of an ETI,” added Martin López Corredoira, co-author of the study.
“We believe that they are natural, if somewhat extreme, astrophysical sources.”
BE ALIENS HERE?
It is possible that these lightning bolts are massive solar flares that are thrown outwards by otherwise cloudy red dwarf stars.
Most likely, there are some cosmological processes that we have not yet understood.
But the evidence for extraterrestrials is by far the most tempting – if unlikely – idea.
The research paper speculates that the bright red “stars” could actually be incredibly powerful lasers. These could be used to drive light sailing ships between the stars or for interstellar communication with Morse codes.
And then there’s the idea of the Dyson sphere – where whole stars are encapsulated in a sphere made of solar panels to absorb the last part of their energy.
Could full examples of these megastructural engineering projects suddenly flare up to dissipate excess heat into the vastness of space?
These are just ideas.
VASCO researchers hope to launch a new Citizen Science project and use artificial intelligence to search the remaining 150,000 anomalies for more evidence.
It turns out that KIC 8462852 or Tabby’s Star, the wildly flickering star that started this whole hunt, is surrounded by clouds of dust.
But another flickering star, HD 139139, is even stranger: its flickering is almost too random.
“The best thing that can happen now is that larger, more sensitive telescopes monitor these stars as often as possible to look for something in their light to indicate the origin of these peculiarities,” wrote astronomer Phil Plait recently on his Bad Astronomy blog. “Hopefully more stars like this will be found. The more the better! I love a puzzle, but I think it’s been like this long enough. It would be nice to get some solid answers. “
TECHNO SIGNATURES
Technology cannot be taken for granted. And it shows.
In radio communication, frequency bands are used that are not overloaded by natural noise. Lasers emit unnaturally pure colors. Street lights make the night unnaturally bright.
All of these things are strange cosmically.
And they are the newest focus in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
They were called techno signatures.
NASA astronomer Joseph Lazio told the Astrobiology Science Conference in June that there were many such treacherous signs.
“For example, if you see a star blinking faster than a microsecond, it’s obviously not a natural phenomenon,” he said. “(But) it’s not really that difficult, we can do it on a laboratory table today.”
Fusion-powered spaceships should have visible emissions. These spectroscopic signatures could be tracked, indicating an unnatural acceleration.
And new telescopes are about to observe the atmosphere of some alien planets. Just as the presence of oxygen indicates life, unnatural pollutants could indicate technology.
In the meantime, the approximately 125,000 missing stars remain one of our strongest advances.
“We hope to get help from the community to see the images as part of a Citizen Science project. We are looking for ways to do this now and we will be able to talk more about this later, ”said the VASCO researchers.
themediatimes.com/disappearing-stars-could-lead-to-extraterrestrials/
By Antwan Echeverria | December 24, 2019
Something strange is happening in our sky. Almost 100 stars seem to be missing.
They have not become nova. Nor have they become black holes. Since there is no natural explanation, some astronomers see aliens.
In 2015, a group of citizen astronomers made the world aware of KIC 8462852, which quickly became known as Tabby’s Star. It flickered. Erratic. Dramatically.
21 other stars were found to behave in the same seemingly unnatural way.
In 2016, however, Swedish astronomers noticed nothing.
It was nothing where something should be.
A star was gone.
Without any trace.
Three years later, they discovered that at least 100 more were missing.
“As long as a star does not collapse directly into a black hole, no physical process is known through which it could physically disappear,” says the study.
“If there are such examples, it is interesting to look for new exotic phenomena or even signs of technologically advanced civilizations.”
Who turned off the lights?
Stockholm University and the Canary Islands Institute for Astrophysics have tracked nothing in space in 2016.
At that time, they compared a photo of the constellation Lupus the Wolf from the 1950s with a more contemporary image. The image of the 1950s showed a star. The new one didn’t.
But there was no sign of a supernova. No signs of a collapsing, cooling shell.
This shouldn’t be possible.
But this impossible is becoming increasingly common.
They published their results and decided to get to the bottom of it.
Four years later, they are even more confused.
The project “Disappearing and Appearing Sources During a Century of Observation” (VASCO) was started in 2017 to search the space for these strange stars. It compared the latest Pan-STARRS sky survey with sky maps and images created over the past 100 years.
Her follow-up study was just published in Astronomical diary.
A total of 600 million objects were identified.
The researchers found 151,193 anomalies.
Only 23,667 of them have been examined so far.
Most of them were just distortions like lens flare or passing insects. Others were asteroids or fast-moving stars.
But 100 cannot be explained yet.
“The implications of finding such objects range from traditional astrophysical fields to exotic searches for evidence of technologically advanced civilizations,” the researchers wrote.
RED TRANSIENTS
The VASCO astronomers ask: Are these just stars?
At first they look like dark red dots in the darkness of space.
Then they start to get lighter. Much brighter. Some peaks are several thousand times brighter.
Then they disappear.
Stars don’t just disappear.
However, they burn out. And even then they don’t go into the night meekly. They can slowly burn down to the level of a white dwarf star. You can go out with a bang as a supernova. Or they could collapse inwards and become a black hole.
But no white dwarfs can be seen where the red stars used to be.
There are no obvious signs of a nova.
And black hole collapses are said to be extremely rare.
“We are very happy to be able to track the 100 red transients found,” said project manager Beatriz Villarroel.
“However, we are aware that none of these events show direct signs of an ETI,” added Martin López Corredoira, co-author of the study.
“We believe that they are natural, if somewhat extreme, astrophysical sources.”
BE ALIENS HERE?
It is possible that these lightning bolts are massive solar flares that are thrown outwards by otherwise cloudy red dwarf stars.
Most likely, there are some cosmological processes that we have not yet understood.
But the evidence for extraterrestrials is by far the most tempting – if unlikely – idea.
The research paper speculates that the bright red “stars” could actually be incredibly powerful lasers. These could be used to drive light sailing ships between the stars or for interstellar communication with Morse codes.
And then there’s the idea of the Dyson sphere – where whole stars are encapsulated in a sphere made of solar panels to absorb the last part of their energy.
Could full examples of these megastructural engineering projects suddenly flare up to dissipate excess heat into the vastness of space?
These are just ideas.
VASCO researchers hope to launch a new Citizen Science project and use artificial intelligence to search the remaining 150,000 anomalies for more evidence.
It turns out that KIC 8462852 or Tabby’s Star, the wildly flickering star that started this whole hunt, is surrounded by clouds of dust.
But another flickering star, HD 139139, is even stranger: its flickering is almost too random.
“The best thing that can happen now is that larger, more sensitive telescopes monitor these stars as often as possible to look for something in their light to indicate the origin of these peculiarities,” wrote astronomer Phil Plait recently on his Bad Astronomy blog. “Hopefully more stars like this will be found. The more the better! I love a puzzle, but I think it’s been like this long enough. It would be nice to get some solid answers. “
TECHNO SIGNATURES
Technology cannot be taken for granted. And it shows.
In radio communication, frequency bands are used that are not overloaded by natural noise. Lasers emit unnaturally pure colors. Street lights make the night unnaturally bright.
All of these things are strange cosmically.
And they are the newest focus in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
They were called techno signatures.
NASA astronomer Joseph Lazio told the Astrobiology Science Conference in June that there were many such treacherous signs.
“For example, if you see a star blinking faster than a microsecond, it’s obviously not a natural phenomenon,” he said. “(But) it’s not really that difficult, we can do it on a laboratory table today.”
Fusion-powered spaceships should have visible emissions. These spectroscopic signatures could be tracked, indicating an unnatural acceleration.
And new telescopes are about to observe the atmosphere of some alien planets. Just as the presence of oxygen indicates life, unnatural pollutants could indicate technology.
In the meantime, the approximately 125,000 missing stars remain one of our strongest advances.
“We hope to get help from the community to see the images as part of a Citizen Science project. We are looking for ways to do this now and we will be able to talk more about this later, ”said the VASCO researchers.
themediatimes.com/disappearing-stars-could-lead-to-extraterrestrials/
