Did Kepler discover a Dyson Swarm?

Strange star.

"The light pattern suggests there is a big mess of matter circling the star, in tight formation. That would be expected if the star were young. When our solar system first formed, four and a half billion years ago, a messy disk of dust and debris surrounded the sun, before gravity organized it into planets, and rings of rock and ice.

But this unusual star isn’t young. If it were young, it would be surrounded by dust that would give off extra infrared light. There doesn’t seem to be an excess of infrared light around this star.

It appears to be mature...

... Wright and his co-authors say the unusual star’s light pattern is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps stellar-light collectors, technology designed to catch energy from the star."

That sounds like a Dyson Swarm, which is a modified Dyson Sphere.

Here's the original article, and the Wikipedia article. It's between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, about 1481 light years away.

If it is an alien artifact, it's amazingly close in terms of distance and time. Alien societies must be extremely common.

Probably just a comet swarm, however.

If it *is* a Dyson swarm or other such collection of alien megastructures - which is a mighty big "if" - I would not say that they are necessarily remarkably close in terms of time. I imagine that such structures could feasibly outlast the civilisation that built them by a considerable period of time.

Well, this is certainly interesting. I know we'll probably be disappointed, but still...

Wonder what we'll call it if it does turn out to be aliens? KIC 8462852 Isn't exactly a catchy name.

As said above, naming this Dyson Sphere using beings might be...

dicey.

edited 15th Oct '15 9:31:36 AM by Aszur

I prefer to think of it as a Dyson Bubble and not some natural phenomena, because it's more fun.