This is another update in my continuing coverage of KIC 8462852 or Boyajian’s star for June
6, 2017.
For the extensive backstory on this star, check out my other updates on this channel
or the playlist dedicated to the subject.
Links to all of the mentioned papers and websites in this update are in the description below.
Firstly, Dr. Boyajian appeared on the Wow!
Signal podcast yesterday and updated what’s known so far from the most recent dip starting
from about May 18 and continuing on, and possibly even still continuing, more on that in a minute.
The most recent major dip, dubbed the Elsie dip, lasted about 4 days, but was preceded
by a period of minor activity.
The Elsie dip seems to have been a pretty drastic drop followed by a sort of sawtooth
return to normal levels.
The good news is that lots of eyes were on this dip as it happened and more data was
collected than what was possible with Kepler.
Most significantly, I suspect, is the color data.
Dr. Boyajian tweeted at the time and mentioned in the podcast that the there was a greater
dip in blue light than red.
This would probably favor dust or gas and that seems to be where the thinking is going.
We’ll probably know more about this soon as Dr. Boyajian tweeted a few days ago that
a preliminary paper should be out within a few weeks.
Hopefully that might help clear things up.
She also pointed out that it’s premature to conclude that there is periodicity present
in the data, and she also noted that the new dip doesn’t fit the dips in the Kepler light
curve exactly, so that essentially means that nothing has really been ruled out yet, including
the interstellar material theory.
Also, she noted that there was nothing extraordinary in the ultraviolet or infrared.
A lack of infrared, if indeed that’s what all this means, is also not surprising since
previous research by Dr. Boyajian and her colleagues didn’t detect infrared excess
either.
But taken on its own, a lack of infrared is pretty interesting.
It would imply that whatever material is blocking the star is either cold or below the threshold
of what the instrumentation can detect.
That would be a strike against a warm cloud of dust like a debris disc around a young
star, but that’s never really been on the table to begin with.
So that’s a summary of what was said on the podcast but there are a few other things
going that are of interest.
Bruce Gary, a rather well-equipped private observer, has been taking photometry of KIC
8462852 and posting his data on his website.
While you can’t infer too much, observations like this from limited data are not always
accurate and these small dips could just be noise, but his measurements do suggest that
the minor dipping continues.
If this is consistent with the Kepler data, than a major dip may be on the way, perhaps
on level with the 16 and 22 percent dips that Kepler saw.
We shall see.
Another development is a revised version of a paper by Peter Foukal that gives an explanation
intrinsic to the star itself.
Essentially variations in the magnetic and atmospheric conditions of the star could be
responsible for the dips.
It’s an interesting paper, and if it were proven to be the case, one wonders why we
only see this magnitude of variation in brightness with this star and, so far, no others.
But, it’s worth noting that other anomalous stars do exist, and in some cases are perhaps
just as weird or weirder than KIC 8462852, see my video on this channel about Przybylski’s
star for an example.
And finally, as usual, it gets weirder with this star.
I must caveat here in that I personally think that it is overwhelmingly likely that we’re
seeing a natural event with this star.
I think it’s reasonable to say that it’s a very rare natural event, but odds are these
are probably not alien megastructures.
I would also say that given the long-term dimming, if this is an alien civilization,
then they are constructing things so rapidly that it defies practicality and the physical
constraints on engineering structures in space as we understand it.
Even molecular nanotech would have a hard time with this one.
A giant dust cloud around a star would not however, nor would something intrinsic to
the star itself et cetera.
That said, as Arthur Clarke once pointed out, any sufficiently advanced alien civilization’s
technology would be indistinguishable from magic, so while I am skeptical, I also recognize
that we have no idea what an alien civilization would look like since we haven’t seen one
yet.
All we can really do is speculate from the position of what we know about ourselves and
our civilization and what’s hypothetically possible in science.
So while I consider an alien explanation highly unlikely, I report whatever credible information
comes out on this star that I find, be it data or papers, and provide links to that
material so you can draw your own conclusions.
That said, down the rabbit hole we go.
The first bit of oddness, which may mean nothing, is something James Davenport and David Wilson
tweeted.
Studying the Galex data taken of the star a few years ago, there seems to be some kind
of roughly 80 second pattern in that data.
This would normally scream instrument noise, but apparently it wasn’t seen in a nearby
star, so it’s anyone’s guess just what this is if it indeed indicates a real feature
of this star.
We shall see.
The second bit of weirdness has to do with a .88 day fluctuation seen in the Kepler data.
Boyajian and her colleagues advanced that this is indicative of the rotation of the
star itself.
Another take came from Valeri Makarov where it was suggested that this fluctuation is
really just interference from a nearby star.
In a paper by Andrew Collins and Rodney Hale, they offer something else.
I urge caution here, it’s interesting, but danger Wil Robinson this is probably just
the star rotating.
Much of the paper deals with the shapes of objects that could produce the dips in the
Kepler light curve.
I’ve seen a lot of variation in models of this, and there are any number of interpretations,
some of which I’ve covered in previous videos.
Only more data is going to clear that up but the paper also notes something really odd,
though I personally think it’s pure coincidence, and to the credit of the authors they caveat
that they are just suggesting and pointing something odd out that might be worth some
attention.
They state that the .88 day periodicity coincides with numerical aspects of our own solar cycle,
and a further apparent periodicity in the Kepler light curve of 48.4 days coincides
with our solar calendar every 242 days.
Long story short, they state that all of these numbers boil down to multiples of 11.
Again, they are careful to warn that this may just be a coincidence.
And, I must admit, I hope it is coincidence because this would imply that an alien civilization
over 1300 light-years away knows that earth is habitable, has the right atmospheric mix
for intelligent life to develop, have calculated our orbit and are sending a visual message
to us just in case we’re here.
I guess that’s not all that different from the idea of an alien civilization beaming
a radio signal towards us, one of the things that SETI searches for.
And I really think it’s just the star rotating and it’s all a coincidence.
But it’s interesting nonetheless and a bit creepy.
What a weird star.
Thanks for listening!
I am futurist and science fiction author John Michael Godier and be sure to check out my
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