Over the past several months, over 10 thousand articles have been published in various world media devoted to this news: the unusual pulsation of a small star raises many questions. Of course, something like this should have happened someday. If you search for something for a long time and persistently, then it will definitely be found in the end.
Fill with kerosene and ignite
Humanity experienced a stir in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli reported on the Martian channels he had discovered. Hotheads suggested digging in the vastness of Siberia a giant triangle with an aspect ratio of 3: 4: 5, thereby demonstrating our knowledge in the field of geometry (Pythagoras' theorem), filling the ditches with kerosene and setting them on fire. And then wait for a return signal from the Martians.
After the invention of radio telescopes, the SETI program appeared, used to search for brothers in mind in space. Some stars were sent radio messages about our desire to establish contacts. However, the first message was sent in 1962 towards Venus. At that time, people still hoped that a civilization of intelligent beings could exist under a dense cloud cover. But, as the saying goes, we had no more chance than a savage brandishing a torch.
Kepler Telescope
In 1991, the first exoplanets were discovered. This term began to be called the planets outside the solar system. In 2009, NASA launched the Kepler Space Telescope to search for planets orbiting other stars. How is the search for distant planets carried out? A special technique is used here. The brightness of the star is measured every half hour. When a planet revolving around its star is on the line between the telescope and the star, the brightness of the star decreases by some amount. The planet obscures part of the stellar disk.
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If our solar system is observed from a distant exoplanet, then when Jupiter passes through the solar disk, the brightness of the star will decrease for a short time by 1%. During the transit of the Earth, whose diameter is 11 times smaller than the Jupiterian, the brightness of the Sun will decrease by hundredths of a percent. That is, very sensitive equipment and computer processing are required, which gives data in a graphical form: a horizontal line of constant brightness of a star with the appearance of a "dip" showing a decrease in brightness for several hours. The magnitude and duration of the "dip" make it possible to judge the size of the planet and its distance from the star.
Debra Fisher and the planet hunters
The Kepler Space Telescope was tasked with observing 156,000 stars. For this, complex computer programs were created. But Debra Fischer of Yale University began to fear that the computer might miss something very important. Of course, the computer is very "smart", but its "brains" are set up by people who do not yet know what surprises can be encountered. And Fischer came up with the idea of attracting astronomy lovers to analyze the information received. About 300 thousand people responded. This is how the Planet Hunters corps was formed. Not all professionals appreciated this move by Fischer, but she was absolutely right. The hunters have discovered many planets missed by a super-powerful computer. And then they discovered something that the computer program hadn't noticed at all.
A modest star in the constellation Cygnus amazed hunters with its pulsation. If the usual planetary transit took place for several hours, then here the decrease in brightness lasted for a week. And the brightness decreased by 22%, which is unthinkable for any, the largest planet.
Instead of the usual straight line of constant brightness, the researchers saw on the graph a line with many dips of various lengths and shapes. This mysterious picture has been observed for many days. Finally, professionals got involved in solving the problem. It was then that the star with the boring catalog name KIC 8462852 began to be called the Tabby star, named after Tabeta Boyadzhan, one of the leaders of the Planet Hunters project. After carefully checking the data obtained, theorists tried to explain what was happening.
How to explain the unexplained
None of the possible reasons could satisfactorily explain the strange behavior of Tabby's star. The remnants of a protostellar cloud, a catastrophic collision of planets, and a huge cometary cloud were also "tried on" on a non-standard star. Whatever you tried, nothing worked. Any attempt to fit natural causes to explain the observed phenomena was immediately questioned by astrophysicists. At the disposal of scientists, there was only one option that not only did not contradict the laws of physics, but also fully explained all the observed oddities. And he explained perfectly, without any exaggeration. This is the so-called Dyson sphere.
The famous Anglo-American theoretical physicist Freeman John Dyson, one of the founders of quantum electrodynamics, in 1960 proposed the idea of a huge space structure that captures the maximum solar energy. Civilization, as it develops, will experience an increasing need for energy. Such a civilization will simply be forced to start building astro-engineering structures that convert sunlight into electrical energy. By gradually building up energy astroconstructions, she will be able to fully use all the energy of her star. In this case, the spherical shell will cover the star completely, as if isolating it from outer space. And before the construction of the complete sphere is completed, a technologically advanced civilization will exploit separate "islands" orbiting the star and supplying energy to the planet. This assumption fully explains the observed changes in the brightness of Tabby's star.
Prospects for Further Study
The scientific community began to pay considerable attention to the small, dim star. In October 2015, the SETI Institute announced the beginning of research on KIC 8462852 using the Allen radio telescope array in California. In February this year, a detailed analysis of observational data from the VERITAS X-ray observatory for the period from 2009 to 2015 was undertaken. Thousands of amateur astronomers spend sleepless nights in front of their telescopes, making a contribution. But, of course, there is great hope for new powerful telescopes that are planned to be launched into space in the near future.
The launch of the James Webb telescope into orbit is scheduled for 2018. The possibility of creating a Superhubble telescope, which will be more powerful than the Hubble, which has been operating in orbit for more than a quarter of a century, by a factor of 100, is being discussed. True, the cost of the telescope is frightening - $ 10 billion. Let's hope that the international community will still throw in the construction of such a telescope. Moreover, new discoveries of stellar civilizations that are building their Dyson spheres may soon follow. Computer programs have already been corrected and will no longer pass such information.
However, the question arises: what to do with you, ordinary people? How to join the observation of alien civilizations without telescopes, appropriate skills and free time? If you go outside on a warm summer night and look at the sky, be sure to pay attention to the Star Swan soaring in the sky above our heads. One of the brightest stars in the Northern Hemisphere, Deneb, shines in the tail of the Swan. Deneb emits more light in one day than the Sun in 140 years. In the middle of the left wing of the Swan, the invisible star Tabby lurked, which made a splash in astronomical circles.
How far behind is our civilization?
Today, earthlings have come close to the need to build space solar power plants. The reserves of hydrocarbons on our planet will inevitably be depleted, and humanity will start looking for alternative sources of energy. Nuclear power has shown its danger. Therefore, the sooner we turn to Dyson's idea, the more successfully we will overcome possible economic collapses with their catastrophic consequences. Caltech has partnered with Northrop Grumman Corporation to develop a massive nine square kilometers solar space power plant. The capacity of the power plant with an efficiency of 40% will be about two megawatts.
To create such a structure, it will be necessary to launch 2,500 satellites into low-Earth orbit (last year, all countries launched 10 times less together), which will create a solar power plant. The converted radiant energy will be transmitted to Earth using directional microwave radiation.
The star Tabby is about 1,500 light years away. That is, what we observe today happened on the planet that is part of the system of this star, 1500 years ago. When the unknown civilization of the star Tabby almost finished building the Dyson sphere, the Roman Empire collapsed on Earth at that time. It is difficult for us even to guess what level this civilization has reached today. With the development of science, progress is accelerating to a great extent. Even 100 years ago, 99% of the world's population had no idea about electricity. And today we have started to develop huge space power plants.
Anatoly PONOMARENKO