????Learn Astronomy in the largest Astronomy Course in Brazil: https://academyspace.com.br/bigbang The Kepler mission operated from 2009 to 2013 observing about 150,000 stars in the constellations of Lyra and Cygnus, searching for exoplanets, that is, planets that orbit stars other than the Sun. With these candidates observed, the data is passed to telescopes on Earth, which, using basically spectroscopy, can first confirm the discovery of an exoplanet and also define its composition, its atmosphere, among other properties. In this way, Kepler has already discovered 103 confirmed exoplanets in 440 star systems until January 2015, with 3,199 candidates still needing confirmation. The numbers in the video are different because they are updated!!! (Sorry). That said, let's move on to the specific analysis of the star KIC 8462852. The light curve of this star was analyzed by citizen scientists from the Planet Hunters project. It is a star located about 1500 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus, and is more massive, hotter and brighter than the Sun, with an approximate magnitude of 12, which means it is impossible to observe with the naked eye. When analyzing the light of this star over a long period of time, the volunteers noticed a 15% drop in light around day 800, and then it returned to its normal brightness. Then, between days 1510 and 1570, the volunteers noticed an even greater decrease in the star's brightness, a drop of 22%, something much greater than what is normally observed in these exoplanet transit events. In addition, exoplanets show regular and repeated decreases in brightness, according to their orbit around the star. This was not happening with the observed star. A problem then arose: how to explain the large drops in brightness and the fact that they are not periodic. Several hypotheses were then created to try to fit the observed data. This is nothing more than the application, once again, of scientific methodology. The hypothesis that best fits the observed data of the star KIC 8462852 is that there is a family of exocomets passing in front of the star. A large comet may have fragmented and these fragments, as they cross the stellar disk, irregularly reduce the brightness of the star. The hypothesis is supported by the presence of a nearby star, which may have disturbed the exocomets and placed them in a collision orbit with the main star. Since comets emit gases when they approach stars, this hypothesis may soon be proven. What happened then? The lead author of the article presented her ideas to Jason Wright, an astronomer who studies exoplanets and who, not coincidentally, has been researching how it would be possible to observe alien structures in the Kepler data. The hypothesis created by Jason Wright is that what Kepler would be seeing is a Dyson Sphere, an idea proposed by a physicist, Freeman Dyson, who popularized the idea in the 1960s. The idea would be to build a sphere around the star to harness the energy of this star into a planet. The sphere would not be something continuous, but rather formed by several panels and so we would be observing irregular variations in the brightness of the star. An analogy created by Jason Wright himself is that it would be like watching people passing through the blinds of a window. Jason Wright himself says that this hypothesis must not be true, but it should not be completely ruled out either, since we are still searching for an explanation. He seemed very calm when presenting the idea, without taking it to the sensationalist side. Let's remember that this has already happened before, when the first pulsar was discovered and was called LGM-1 (Little Green Men). Sources: http://www.universetoday.com/122865/w... https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/201... http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astron... http://gizmodo.com/aliens-or-not-ther... Links to articles on Slideshare: Article about KIC 8462852: http://pt.slideshare.net/sacani/plane... Dyson Sphere, by Jason Wright: http://pt.slideshare.net/sacani/the-s... Blog post with images, articles and full text: http://spacetoday.com.br/familia-de-c... Link to Planet Hunters: http://www.planethunters.org/ Link to Zooniverse: https://www.zooniverse.org/ My contacts: BLOG: http://www.spacetoday.com.br FACEBOOK: / spacetoday TWITTER: / spacetoday1 YOUTUBE: / spacetodaytv Thanks for watching and have fun!!!