There's a very small chance that it is alien activity, but really, Occam's razor suggests it's cosmic activity. For one, if it were a Dyson Swarm, the light will dip in consistent and predictable fashion.
Still, makes for a nice story :)
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@liberosist While I generally agree, if the civilization was in the process of building the swarm then it might look like this. The other important thing and this is why I linked the pre-print. A previous paper had essentially destroyed the whole idea that it was activity local to that system. Saying it was more likely to be an interstellar gas cloud.
What this paper does is provide much more support for a system local phenomena.
Now, I'm not going to rule out a cometary fragmentation event. But why would the total light be decreasing so much, one would normally expect that to rise and dip as it orbited, but overall it would remain within a range proportional to it's surface area.
This means something is increasing the surface area, i.e. breaking something up and also if that were just a comet...
HOLY CRAP that would be a huge freaking comet!
I'm going to read the paper this weekend, but if it were under construction, it would still be consistent. Unless they are permanently tripping... :) This one is too erratic. I'm sure we'll get down to the bottom of this soon enough.
@liberosist Cool I hope to hear your thoughts. To be clear, the paper doesn't chalk this up to a civilization. They say opaque material is all. One thing is for certain, something really strange is going on with this star.
True, it's unusual. But the universe is vast, and I'm sure there are many undiscovered phenomena.
Dont get me wrong, I would be more inclined to think it's cosmic than alien, however, just to play advocate (and I really want to believe) have you ever seen a road project go CONSISTENTLY? I mean c'mon, there's gonna be delays, then some days everyone works real hard, ya know, maybe they had to wait on a delayed shipment of carbon nanotubes. Maybe they just worked through a tough strike with the labor union and then everyone gets back to work, increasing productivity...
@quantumanomaly Excellent points! I would actually buy that book if you wrote it!
That is still pretty consistent as a long term trend. You don't build a 100 mile road to have 95 miles disappear one day and reappear the next.
@liberosist Kinda depends on where the road is :)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2531060/Mexican-coastal-highway-cracks-slides-300ft-mountainside-sea-mini-earthquake-near-U-S-border.html
Uh yeah, I can't come to work today. Yes, my kid caught the grey goo at preschool.