There has been a huge amount of talk lately about “Most Mysterious Star in the Galaxy”

Kickstarter for further research needed for Tabby’s Star

Astronomers are working incredibly hard to figure out what natural phenomena could possibly cause the dips and variations in brightness from the star known as KIC 8462852 (aka Tabby’s Star). The thing that seems most to mystify them is the lack of infrared reradiating off whatever seems to be blocking the light from the star.

I am mystified more by the refusal to think like alien engineers than the lack of infrared. They have already determined it must almost certainly be an occulting object, and Schaefer states clearly they tried and failed to create all manner of natural explanation to the dips + lack of IR. They now need to see if they could engineer a structure that would have the same properties.

I maintain the lack of IR is in fact a strong signal of an engineered structure orbiting Tabby’s Star, and further present a testable hypothesis for what more should be looked for to back up that idea.

IF there is occulting material AND the IR is missing for the equivalent absorbed energy, THEN the IR must be being redirected. There are no other options.

There are really only two ways of achieving that.

1. Redirect all or most of the spectrum. This has been proposed in other papers as giant orbiting mirrors. The energy is barely absorbed and therefore the IR won’t radiate off the antistar-ward (directly away from the star) side of the mirrors.

2. Absorb the all or most of the spectrum, and redirect the IR in a direction orthogonal to the orbital plane (and our line of sight).

For number (2) There is a very good reason you would do this were you an alien megastructure engineer, Orbital mechanics. If you build a structure that is absorbing that much directed energy outward from the star, you have to be very careful about how much energy you in turn radiate away form the star. Thrusting star-ward would speed your orbit up. It is much safer to radiate energy along the Northerly and Southerly directions equally, for a static orbit or use a differential orthogonal thrust to move above and below the standard orbital plane. If you instead reradiate all that IR energy equally with no active management, you get an imbalance of forces off the directly antistar-ward side which destabilizes the structures orbit in an uncontrolled manner.

Radiating along the path of your orbit or behind you would also be dangerous as it would move your orbit inward or outward.

Furthermore, if you are among a system of large structures, there is an absolute need to manage your own orbit, while not radiating directly at other structures. The best direction for that is, again, orthogonal to the orbital plane.

Testable Hypothesis:

This is very testable. IF they are able to get a spectrum off a full occultation start to finish or even from the middle to when the occultation ends. There is likely to be directional IR of much higher levels along the edges to the levels during the occultation coming from the edge of a potential structure. Any inward and outward thrust is likely to come from the edges of such a structure, as that is where you would place your IR radiators, and the IR spectra at those edges should show as much. There will probably be IR radiated slightly star-ward and antistar-ward for active orbital maneuvering and station keeping.

If I were evaluating how smart an alien mega-structure engineer were, that’s the location I’d look to find Where’s The Flux.

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