Sometimes called “Tabby’s Star”, it’s one of a thousand other stars with planets, that have been discovered by the Kepler orbital telescope. But its data is totally unlike that of any of those other stars. It looks like we discovered intelligent life in another solar system.
Astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed three classes of alien. Human Beings are nearest to Type One, because of our low level of energy consumption. Type Two aliens turn sunlight into a source of power, by surrounding their star with a vast spherical megastructure. Type Three aliens, have enough energy to make an entire galaxy disappear.
Star KIC-846-2852 is nicknamed after Tabetha Boyajian, who investigated its highly unusual light curve. She is also the manager of the Planet Hunters project. Tabby’s data reveals this star as a home to a Type Two alien civilization… specifically, aliens who attempted to surround their burning sun with a Dyson sphere.
The star does not burn yellow, but instead brilliant white, and it is not completely enclosed. The construction of the Dyson sphere is only partially completed. That leaves only two possibilities. The first is that we are observing an alien solar system which is “undergoing construction”.
The SETI institute was determined to be the first to detect radio emissions from Tabby’s Star. No matter how advanced the civilization, radio would have to be one of its byproducts. Radio waves propagate at the speed of light, so we would essentially be able to hear them working on their megastructure.
But SETI found no radio signature, meaning the other possibility was the most likely.
A dead civilization has been discovered in space. They left behind only a Dyson Sphere, now breaking to pieces, or one which was never completed in the first place. If they ever did try to communicate, their transmitter ran out of power before the first human being uttered the first word.
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