Alien megastructure around the kic8462852 star

Astronomers around the world are keeping a close eye on the star KIC 8462852, which has dimmed dramatically numerous times over the past few years, dropping in brightness by up to 22 percent. These big dips have spurred speculation that the star may be surrounded by some type of alien megastructure — a hypothesis that will be put to the test if and when KIC 8462852 dims again.

location

KIC 8462852 in the constellation Cygnus is located roughly halfway between the bright stars Deneb and Delta Cygni as part of the Northern Cross.KIC 8462852 is situated south of 31 Cygni, and northeast of the star cluster NGC 6866. While only a few arcminutes away from the cluster, it is unrelated and closer to the Sun than it is to the star cluster.

With an apparent inch (130 mm) telescope.in a dark sky with little light pollution.magnitude of 11.7, the star cannot be seen by the naked eye

 Is that an alien megastructure?

So scientists are entertaining a number of other ideas, hypothesizing that the dimming might be caused by a swarm of exocomets or perhaps even some type of orbiting alien megastructure. This latter possibility is unlikely, researchers stress, but it's still worth checking out. Indeed, astronomers have aimed radio telescopes at KIC 8462852 to search for signals that may have been generated by intelligent aliens

who knows,it maybe a type II civilization of  alien species,who can harness energy  from stars with a megastructure usually called as dyson sphere.

Many hypotheses have been put forward over the last few years, including a massive swarm of comets and a giant ringed planet orbiting very close to KIC 8462852. None of these explanations quite explain what was being offered, however.

In an interview with Newsweek earlier this year, Louisiana State University’s Tabetha Boyajian, who first discovered the dimming, said: “Every theory that’s been proposed is [far more extreme] than what we know to exist now. So we’re looking for a solution that works with a reasonable physical mechanism we can postulate.”

However, the mystery may now have been solved. In a study published in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers used NASA's Spitzer and Swift missions to examine the dimming in different wavelengths. What they found was there was less dimming when looking at the star in infrared light than when they observed it in ultraviolet.

If the cause of the dimming was anything bigger than dust particles, then the dimming in different wavelengths would be the same. "This pretty much rules out the alien megastructure theory, as that could not explain the wavelength-dependent dimming," lead author Huan Meng, at the University of Arizona, Tucson, said in a statement from NASA. "We suspect, instead, there is a cloud of dust orbiting the star with a roughly 700-day orbital period."