Scientists just spotted another ‘alien megastructure’ star
Alien-hunters trained massive telescopes on a mysterious star last year after it started ‘dimming’ – hinting that something was passing in front of it.
Some people were sure it was the sign of an alien ‘megastructure’ – a Death Star-style mega-spaceship, orbiting the star and sucking up its energy.
Now scientists have spotted another star – VVV-WIT-07′ – which is dimming in a similar way, in data from the VISTA telescope in Chile.
We’ll let you down gently here: it’s probably not aliens – it could be clouds of dust, or some other natural object orbiting the planet.
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Having another star to compare with Tabby’s star – aka KIC 8462852 – could help scientists understand the phenomenon.
In 2012, the new star dimmed slowly for 11 days, and then faded out to almost nothing for 48 days, with 80% of the star’s light eclipsed.
Astronomers have dismissed the idea that Tabby’s star is being orbited by a space station – as the ‘dimming’ seems to only affect certain wavelengths of light, hinting that it’s something transparent.
Some researchers have suggested the dimming could caused by a huge ringed planet, which causes one period of dimming – and a swarm of comets on the same orbit.’
