Since its first light in 2009 , the Kepler Space Telescope has been scan the cosmos in search of habitable human race beyond our Solar System . During its mundane observations , the telescope observe something very unusual . Nestled between the configuration Cygnus and Lyra , sits a foreign and intriguing star .
Kepler is project to respect stars and look for diminutive dips in their cleverness . These dip , particularly if they recapitulate , can be a sign the star has one or more planet orbiting it . By measuring the timing and the size of the dips , scientists can learn a swell business deal about the transiting planet . The data is then processed automatically by computers with algorithmic rule designed to look for repeating patterns – a sign that something is orbiting the wiz .
Kepler concentre on this one realm for four years , note as many as 150,000 wizard at the same time . Due to the monumental amounts of data collect , Kepler scientist rely on “ citizen scientists ” through a web site calledPlanet Huntersto help them scour the datum for anything strange . In 2011 , one sensation in exceptional was flagged as strange .
Kepler observed the star topology KIC 8462852 for four yr bulge out in 2009 . Typically , orbiting planets only blind the light of their host star for a period of a few hour to a few day bet on their orbit . A group of citizen scientists detect that this hotshot appeared to have two small dips in 2009 , followed by a large free fall hold out almost a week in 2011 , and last a series of multiple dip significantly blind the star ’s igniter in 2013 .
Tabetha Boyajian , a postdoc at Yale , told The Atlantic : “ We ’d never see anything like this star . It was really weird . We reckon it might be bad data point or movement on the spacecraft , but everything checked out . ”
The form of dip indicate that the star is orb by a large , irregular - shaped mass . If it were orbit a unseasoned star , this volume might be a protoplanetary disk , but KIC 8462852 is not a young star . We would also expect to see the presence of dust emit infrared light , which has n’t been observed . So what is this revolve pot ? Scientists augur that whatever it is , it had to have work recently as it would have been pull in by the star ’s solemnity and consumed .
Boyajian recentlypublished a paperoffering several possible account for the bizarre transits . The leading theory is that a family of exocomets pass too near to the genius , and were shredded into pieces by the mavin ’s massive somberness . The persist rubble and debris could be leave to revolve the virtuoso .
But researchers from UC Berkeley ’s SETI Institute suppose it could be something else entirely : They cerebrate this could be a mark of alien engineering . Boyajian is mould with SETI and Jason Wright , an astronomer from Penn State University , to develop a proposal to keep an eye on the ace with NRAO ’s Green Bank Telescope to seek for radio wave . If they detect anything challenging , they then have plans to employ the Very Large Array ( VLA ) in New Mexico to listen for what could be the sounds of alien technology .
The first observations are estimated to take stead in January , with a likely follow - up design for next fall . Of course , if they stumble upon something incredible , the researchers could expect to conform to - up with the VLA straight away . Kepler also plans to observe KIC 8462852 in May 2017 , when the mass is require to transit the star again .
