Stephen Hawking to lead search for life near ‘ALIEN MEGASTRUCTURE’
Brit professor will head up bid to discover whether extraterrestrials built massive object around a distant star
A GROUP of scientists is preparing to finally solve the question of whether an "alien megastructure" is orbiting a distant star.
Professor Stephen Hawking will lead an £81 million project to discover whether aliens are responsible for the mysterious behaviour of a star called KIC 8462852, or Tabby's Star.
The star was spotted exhibiting a bizarre dimming behaviour which looked as if it was blinking.
This prompted the serious suggestion that the light pattern was caused by an "alien megastructure" orbiting the star and blocking out the light periodically.
Jason Wright of Penn State University said the bizarre signals around Tabby's Star looked like something he would "expect an alien civilisation to build".
"I can’t figure this thing out and that’s why it’s so interesting, so cool – it just doesn’t seem to make sense," .
Tabby's Star lies just above the Milky Way and was first spotted in 2009 by the Kepler Space Telescope.
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Initial analysis of the star suggested the possibility that it might be a 'Dyson Sphere', which is a massive structure capable of harvesting energy from nearby stars.
In a statement, Berkeley University's Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence Institute director, Andrew Siemion, said: "Everyone, every SETI program telescope, I mean every astronomer that has any kind of telescope in any wavelength that can see Tabby’s star has looked at it.
"It’s been looked at with Hubble, it’s been looked at with Keck, it’s been looked at in the infrared and radio and high energy, and every possible thing you can imagine, including a whole range of SETI experiments. Nothing has been found."
The study will start tonight with the analysis being conducted over eight hour periods, which will generate a whopping 29,200 hours worth of data over its lifespan.
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