Tabby’s Star Indicated Alien Life
Things get quite interesting whenever people discover a large amount of stars that indicate alien life. But one such star system failed to provide researchers with the entertainment that they were seeking. The star system, which has been monitored for some time through radio frequencies, has offered nothing more than silence. Sadly, this is not the day in which we discover alien life.
The research was carried out by SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, which has been keeping a close eye on this star system for approximately two weeks. While this might be enough time for a human’s lifespan, it could be too little for a star system located light years away. Still two weeks of complete radio silence can be enough evidence that alien life is not located in the area.
The star system is known as Tabby’s Star or, as scientists call it, KIC 8462852. A rather suspicious light fluctuation has been observed two years ago by users of a crowdsourcing site known as Planet Hunters. For two years this unusual patter has faced numerous opinions from astrologists and nothing certain was known about it. So they decided to listen to it, but the system did not reply.
Tabby’s Star is located 1,500 light years away from Earth and the light that the system is emanating has a 20% light variation: sometimes the light is weaker, sometimes stronger. When this sort of event occurs, scientists suspect that the light is going down because a planet is passing by the stars. This is also the Kepler Telescope’s mission: to discover Earth-like planets based on the light that stars give away.
SETI started looking into the matter the moment they understood that Kepler team confirmed that there was an unusual light pattern. Tabby’s Star indicated alien life, but was it really there, or just our desperate desire to find it?
Sadly, there was no such thing that could be discovered. After analyzing the two different radio frequencies in the region, it turned out that the flickering starlight was a natural factor. Narrow-band signals, which indicate the existence of an outworld society, were silent and broadband signals, which could indicate ancient alien structures in the system, were also silent.
Tabby’s Star indicated alien life, but the silence in which the area is engulfed points out that there is actually nothing out there. At least not yet, anyway. But what if there is something there that simply wants to hide from us?
Photo Credits pexels.com
