Physicist Eduard Heindl from the University of Furtwangen (Germany) offered his explanation for the possible presence of alien megastructures in KIC 8462852 - a star with observed periodic changes in luminosity, the causes of which have not yet been established. A study on this topic was published on the arXiv.org website and briefly reported by the Daily Mail.
According to Heindl, periodic changes in the luminosity of KIC 8462852 may be associated with the activities of aliens. In his opinion, they take energy from the star during the period when its luminosity decreases.
The scientist proposed a possible device for a circumstellar grouping, with the help of which representatives of an extraterrestrial civilization, if it exists, extract energy from KIC 8462852, and also created a simple model describing the change in luminosity.
The star KIC 8462852 lies 1,480 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. Its mass and radius are about 1.5 times that of the Sun. The star is interesting because, according to a number of astronomers, its luminosity changes by 22 percent with strict periodicity.
There are several explanations for this phenomenon. Among them is the presence of a cometary cloud around the star, which, however, requires too many such celestial bodies in the star's orbit (about 650 thousand). Another hypothesis is the existence of artificial structures around KIC 8462852.