Most likely, these are not aliens. No, seriously, it is unlikely that they could be aliens, but the very unusual star KIC 8462852 and the data collected about it so far only give rise to more questions than answers from astronomers. In general, the situation around the so-called alien megastructure, supposedly built by an extraterrestrial civilization near this star, becomes even more mysterious.
Since the discovery by the Kepler space telescope of the star KIC 84628532, astronomers have not ceased to think about what is the source of its unusual and so far not amenable to logical explanation of anomalous fluctuations in its glow. Four years of continuous observations of the star have shown that its glow is very chaotic, and the luminous efficiency periodically decreases to 20 percent. This is an extremely unusual behavior for a star, which cannot be explained by the mere presence of a planet that periodically passes by it. Some astronomers have suggested that this feature could be explained by the presence of a dense cluster of comets or asteroids around KIC 8462852. Others suspect aliens. However, there is still no exact answer to what it is.
Astronomer Jason Wright, for example, proposed the idea that such an unusual distortion of the star KIC 8462852 could be caused by some kind of giant cosmic structure of artificial origin, like the hypothetical Dyson sphere. This assumption immediately caused a wave of discussions around the world and at the same time forced to activate all the forces of the SETI program to search for evidence of the existence of our space neighbors. Unfortunately, two independent studies on the presence of active radio signals and laser beams, which could come from the star KIC 8462852 and were direct evidence of the existence of technologically advanced civilizations, have not been crowned with success.
However, according to a study recently published in the online library arXiv.org, the hypothesis of a cometary distortion of the star also did not find evidence, which makes the situation around KIC 8462852 even more confusing and mystical. Although Kepler had only been observing KIC 8462852 for a few years, Louisiana State University astronomer Bradley Schaefer, who published the latest study, decided to analyze photographic plates of the sky created in the late 19th century. To his surprise, he found that over the past hundred years, the luminous efficacy of KIC 8462852 has periodically decreased by about 19 percent, which "completely contradicts the behavior of any class F star."
"This fact has raised doubts about the possibility of a dense cluster of comets obscuring the star," says Tabetha Boyajan, head of the research team that first discovered this unusual star.
"More data and information is needed before the question of what is really going on there can be answered."
Solving the riddle of the star KIC 8462852 will take a lot of time and work. However, this is the beauty of scientific discovery. We already have before us all possible explanations of what can happen there. It remains only to choose the correct option. More modern observation technologies will help to make this choice. One such technology will be the TESS space telescope, which will replace the outdated Kepler in 2017.