Tabby's the mysterious star in Universe

Tabby’s Star can detect little bigger than sun and according to astronomer if its new star then 20% dip in its light might be due to blockage in light where debris are dense in numbers and other irregular dips pattern are due to fluctuation in numbers of debris blocking light from the star

Tabby's the mysterious star in Universe

As we know this Universe is full of mysteries, more we explore universe, more chapters of mysteries open. Kepler Space Telescope is an observatory in space, is devised to monitor one specific part of sky and in this way. It monitors 1.5 lac stars on daily basis since 2009, when it was launched into space. One of Kepler Space Telescope major functions is to monitor luminosity/brightness of a star to discover any new planet (and with this technique it has discovered many other planets around stars).

When any planet passes from star, there in dip in its light.  And from that dip in brightness of star astronomers can discover new planet by using Kepler’s telescope. This dip in brightness maximum counts up to 1% of star brightness, in case if any big planet crosses the star.

Let suppose if Jupiter which is one of the biggest planets comes in front of star, dip in its light will be maximum up to of 1% from its original brightness and it will be in symmetrical form. In 2009 when Kepler’s Telescope was put into space it also detected dip in light of star called “KIC 8462852”. Shorter name of “KIC 8462852” is “Tabby’s Star” which is named after astronomer “Tabetha S. Boyajian”.

Tabby’s star dip patterns

This star is located at distance of 1500 light years from our planet. What strange noticed about this star is that; when Kepler’s telescope measured the brightness of this star in 2011 and again in 2013, the dip in light was detected up to 20% with other irregular Asymmetric dip patterns.  And the patterns of dips were of types which was an indication that no planet has crossed the star.

It was quite a mystery for astronomer, then what it could be? Hence astronomer hypothesizes that too much dip in light might be a sign that it’s a newly formed star like sun. Usually when new star created there is a protoplanetary disk around star and there are millions of debris in a disk (as a case when sun was formed 4 billion years ago it had a protoplanetary disk and had millions of debris around sun).

Tabby’s Star can detect little bigger than sun and according to astronomer if its new star then 20% dip in its light might be due to blockage in light where debris are dense in numbers and other irregular dips pattern are due to fluctuation in numbers of debris blocking light from the star.

Infrared emission

Most important thing to mention here is that when new star forms then dust in a disk must give infrared emission which is indication that its newly formed. But what surprised astronomers was that there was no infrared emission detected which proved that it’s not a new star. Than what? Astronomer hypothesize another possibility (which is quite a usual configuration but still….).

May be a star which is nearby to Tabby’s star due to its gravitational pull compel million of comets that are present at the outer side of Tabby’s solar system towards itself. And when these comets in bulk cross Tabby’s star in their elliptical orbit they block huge amount of light and dip goes upto 20% with lots of other irregular dips (referring to fluctuation in comets density in terms of numbers off course). 

But when astronomer did more observations i.e. in wave and millimeter which is used to detect the comets indirectly, even in that case no such proof observed. Then astronomers looked at the record of this star from 1890-1990. It’s a kind of record which observed stars on regular basis and Tabby’s star was observed 1200 times and it was observed from the record that in span of just 100 years the star has been faded away 16% from its original luminosity/brightness.

In data of Kepler’s Telescope astronomers have observed that within span of 4 years (since 2009) brightness of star has dropped 4% further. While in case of sun and other stars they are getting brighter with the passage of time while Tabby’s star instead is losing it brightness. And there is no solid proof why this mysterious activity is happening? Till the date no astronomer has any proof.

This mystery points towards a possibility that there might be some other life present there, who is so advanced that they are trapping the light of star for their energy use.

Life on other planets

As we all know living things including bacteria, animals (infect all) are dependent on energy for their survival. Physicist Freeman John Dyson  around 30-40n years back gave an idea that not only civilization on earth but any other  civilizations present somewhere else in the universe  also need energy.

Human beings can only trap little amount of energy from sun and rest is lost in space but  according to Freeman if there is any other civilization (called type 2 or 3 civilization)  present  somewhere will be so advanced that they will be able to conserve even single photon of their energy source called “Dyson Sphere”. And this dip might be indication that some mega construction is on its way around Tabby’s Star.

Tabby’s star is the only star that astronomers are seriously taking with sign of civilization on it and in this connection, astronomers are making use of telescope in West Virginia called Green Bank Telescope to check if that civilization is sending any signals or if any kind of signals in form of radio waves are present there which could be detected.

Discussion

While once I was reading a news on BBC Urdu after death of Stephen Hawking about him, it was mentioned in the news that one of his last messages was also regarding presence of aliens in the universe. And according to him they are way advance from mankind. And he advised to refrain contacting them.

Well in case of Tabby’s star as a matter of fact communication is not possible before 3000 years and reason is obvious, star is located at the distance of 1500 light years from us and bringing any message to them at speed of light will take 1500 years from one side and getting back from them another 1500 years. Hence no communication is possible in thousand years but if we detect any sign of civilization there that would be biggest achievement of mankind.