International has not confirmed that star KIC 8462852 is rapidly extinguishing
The binary star KIC 8462852, located in the constellation Cygnus at a distance of 1,480 light-years from Earth, is known for having recorded anomalous fluctuations in its luminosity in the recent past. Some scientists were inclined to explain this feature by the presence of alien megastructures near the star. Recently, however, experts from Germany, Russia, the United States and Estonia have come out with a refutation of another proof of a similar theory - that the star supposedly "goes out" incredibly quickly over the years.
The binary star was discovered in October last year, and immediately attracted the attention of scientists because, according to the data obtained, its luminosity changed frequently and dramatically, sometimes decreasing by 20 percent during the day. Subsequently, astronomer Bradley Schaefer from Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, having studied photographic plates from the archives of the Harvard Observatory, found a very sharp decrease in the "average" luminosity of the star in the long term - by about 14 percent from 1890 to 1989, that is, a little more than century. Although the researcher was in no hurry to declare that his conclusions confirm the existence of an alien supercivilization near the star, they, in any case, allowed to discard a number of more "boring" explanations, such as a swarm of comets passing through the star's disk and blocking out part of the light.
However, a new study by an international team of scientists has shown that previous data may be flawed. Using data from the Sonneberg Observatory in Germany, experts came to the conclusion that in the long term, the luminosity of KIC 8462852 remains unchanged, which means that the "alien" explanation of the temporal fluctuations still cannot be considered one of the most probable.
It is worth noting that earlier Bradley Schaefer's conclusions had already been questioned - another group of experts suggested that the photographic plates he used were obtained using 17 different telescopes, which complicates their calibration and makes the results less reliable. However, in response to criticism, Schaefer said that he was ready to know about a number of other studies, as a result of which it was possible to prove that KIC 8462852 is gradually extinguishing.
The "alien" version of what is happening with the double star implies that an extraterrestrial civilization surrounded it with the so-called Dyson sphere - a hypothetical structure that allows you to collect light from a star and convert it into a huge amount of energy.
Dmitry Istrov