alien chef commander : " Bring me this Tabetha snitch "

Actual scientist, speaking with precision: "one of the most mysterious stars in our galaxy." Marketing person working for TED: "The most mysterious star in the universe".

And she is too humble to mention that this star is named after her: Tabby's star. There are not many stars named after people, maybe a hundred in total (and I'm not one of them 😁)

After watching this, I feel like earth might be the group project of alien students somewhere up there

I am one of those volunteers and I am really proud. Seeing eclipsing binaries and possible exo planets is beyond fascinating.

I really love what she ended on. "What will it mean if we find another star like this? And what will it mean if we don't?" If we don't find anything like this again it could possibly rule out natural phenomena, and lean towards a more alien hypothesis.

Between October 2019 and December 2019, at least seven separate dips were observed, the deepest of which had a depth of 2%. By the end of the observing season in early January 2020, the star had once again recovered in brightness. The total combined depth of the dips in 2019 was 11%, comparable to that seen in 2011 and 2013, but spread over a long time interval.

She is very good in her presenation. She is believably direct without being arrogant. Her voice moves and pulls you along. Good job. For her, the audience, the viewers: Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year

Great, if we find aliens and they look into our history of extra terrestrial movies, they would see that 90% of the time, we kill them.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Take notes, flat earthers.

Mars is currently very visible at night from the UK, and on late night walks with my dog, I often find myself just staring up at it and the stars surrounding it. The word awesome is used far too easily these days, but the sky at night is, truly awesome.

I never thought the photometer would be able to detect this so accurately, I thought that it would be interfered with with all types of stray space signals and everything but it works perfectly

Imagine hundreds of years from today maybe this clip will be seen as: "This was the first time we noticed them".....

I got in trouble watching this in class, but then I showed my teacher and since it was science class, she let us watch it on the projector. #lucky

The older I get the more I realise my own ignorance. But, for me the biggest mystery is that of time and time alone must be properly understood before we can get anywhere with understanding anything else. This lady is gentle with us dummies, for which I am grateful; well done!

I can't express enough how grateful I am for your channel. Your videos have helped me understand complex scientific concepts in an easily digestible way

Thought Christopher Walken was the most mysterious star in the universe

Sounds like it wasn't the star that was mysterious but the "thing" that passed in front of it!

thank you Tabetha, so interesting to hear of this

I'm here from a book where I've read about tabetha and I thought tabetha is a male person but she is 'she' 🥰🥰🥰And of course sooo much proud of you🥰 (I'm a bagladeshi so I couldn't catch the name)

This is absolutely fascinating! I had read a bit about it, but the way she breaks it down. As soon as i saw that 15% dip in light my jaw hit the ground!

At 2:39 she says " . . . one of the most mysterious stars in our galaxy." That's a far more modest claim than the video's title promises.

Would it be helpful to have the Webb telescope train its sights on the star for a while?

The kind of TED Talks we need more

Ever notice how all the instruments looking for intelligent life are pointed AWAY from Earth.

She's not saying Aliens but... Aliens.

How about going all the way and calling it "What the Flux!?"

What if it's just one or more blackholes that are floating around in the "vicinity" and they are redirecting the light at a different angle for random periods of time?

Obviously a new death star weapon being developed by the empire.

"Dyson: we don't just do vacuum cleaners"

Thanks Summer, Rick is proud

I think it’s the result of a stray solar system merging with this star’s system and causing multiple alignments from our perspective. With the second star appearing from behind KIC and the stray planets merging orbits in some binary system sort of way. Some planets collide with others, create debris, etc.

I think I may have an answer to this problem. Imagine a system with three or four Jupiter sized planets. During their orbits there will be times when they align and as a result, the outermost will be over time, pulled inward toward its star. The orbit of this outermost Jupiter becomes increasingly elliptical and in the process, it disturbs the orbits of the other Jupiters. Eventually the orbit of the outermost Jupiter becomes highly elliptical where it plunges towards its star, passing very close, then speeds away. If the angle of its ellipse is just right from the view point of the Earth, we see the planet plunging toward its star followed by it speeding away behind its star. This orbit would match up with the long, slow period where the light from the sun is being slowly dimmed as the Jupiter plunges toward its star. At maximum star dimness, this Jupiter may be within the equivalent orbit of Mercury, which would explain the 20% drop in light. It then speeds away from its star, passing behind it from Earth's point of view, which results in the sudden increase in luminosity. As far as the double dip in the data, followed by another dip, that can be explained by the outermost Jupiter towing the inner Jupiters into highly elliptical orbits, so that the closest passing Jupiter is rapidly preceded or followed by a second one, then more slowly followed by a third. We should be able to prove this hypothesis via super computer, or by continued observation of the star when this behaviour begins to repeat. We could also see a very pronounced wobble produced by the gravitational tug of the planets as they speed by in their elliptical orbit.

I'm thrilled you gave this Ted talk. I've participated in various Zooniverse research efforts since my time in college Astronomy class. I hadn't heard any follow ups until this. Awesome. Thanks.

Is it possible that multiple planets crossed the field of vision at that particular time?

Observation 1 . There is an unimaginable actual tangible distance between us and this star with countless objects ,smaller than the resolution and sampling in the analogue /digital optical lens processor of Kepler. The aggregate of these objects can eventually create random clean and noisy transition signatures. Observation 2 . Remember that we are looking at a tiny, less than a fraction of space , and so this pattern will be repeated else where just by statistical calculation . Observation 3 : Large bodies orbiting other stars can create transition shadows as Kepler can not digitally distinguish the x.y,z axis profile of that space block at that distance using 'one axis 'of reference and relative observation. Even with Kepler orbit, this reference positioning for data acquisition needs to be extended by distance factor of x100 in all x,y,z planes to get more accurate data. Although its good to recognise a pattern its impossible to link any assumptions of Alien existence at this stage. We observe an anomaly to the 'typical' we can say.

I really appreciate that this star was found by amateurs. This is the sort of thing that I'd kinda like to hear a follow up on, but never expect to.

Her remarks at the end of the video about citizen astronomers put a smile on my face, as no one astronomer is less worthy than another; irregardless of credentials - because anyone can make an observation and anyone can hypothesize a theory.

when you look at something far away with a binocular and a closer object is trespassing your sight very close to your binocular , you will see that the object or person is blocking a lot from your view sight making it to look huge and endless. What if these blocking sunlight cuts off are caused by some random (closer to us) huge asteroids tresspassing the sight of the telescope sensor ? Is it possible ?

When is part 2 coming to us.

FINALLY. Something actually rooted in science

What if they are sending us a message using the light fluctuations...... 🤔

Her mind is as clear as crystal. She knew each and every thing she was saying, even though i am a not a native english speaker, i understood her words very easily and clearly. I envy her🥺

I would really love to see an update on where thinking about this star is today. What new evidence is there and what is the current thinking?

We probably live in an alternate universe where those poor sods got selected to be terminated to make room for a new hyperspace express route.

I find it funny that this video is very simple and easy to understand yet many people in the comment section seem to disagree.

8:52 that was awkward 😅

I have a suggestion . What if the strange mater resulting from the collision of two neutron starts collided with a large amount in this star? Is it possible that it will negatively affect the light from it?

Again, turns out it was another moth. Just a moth.

KIC 8462852 is 1,480 light years away. *We are seeing what it looked like 1,480 years ago.*

It's a spanner that fell off the Hubble telescope slowly spinning infront of the position in space when it looks at that star.

I spent over a thousand hours on this project and was happy to be able to contribute data

I thought Tabetha Boyajian was the name of the star

regardless of aliens or not I think the best takeaway here is citizen science. Citizen science isn't restricted by religion, politics, or whatever. It would also be much more difficult to control or filter a thousand backyard scientists rather than just a few recognized scientific establishments. The possibilities could be endless as technology brings more ability to the citizen scientist.

maybe a double star, or even triple star. of course the radiation from one star is blocked totally if it's behind the other; or it blocks the first star's light if it is in front of the other.

I had her for a class. Great professor. Learned a lot in her class.

makes sense of why Stephen Hawking recently said 'don't make contact'.

I felt a great disturbance in the Forrce. As if millions of flat-earthers cried out in horror and we're suddenly silenced.

It's amazing how with all the stuff out there that nobody knows anything about but we have found the most mysterious star.

10:11 How and where would they find all the materials and energies needed to construct such a thing when they just happen to have no ressource and energy left for themself?

If I lived in a sufficiently advanced society wishing to send a message across the galaxy I would use my local star to send a message. We can see the light from stars thousands of light years away. I would use a flotilla of satellites stretching Mylar like sheets broad enough to block star light alternately.

Whatever this is........it happened a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

Always stick with the most rational explanation. It's another star nearby messing with the light using it's gravitational field. And sometimes their astroids collide making dust clouds. They are now called KIC8462852A and KIC8462852B.

"Imagine a civilization that's much more advanced than our own." What's to imagine? Ant colonies are more advanced...and more civilized.

The astronomer in me is so happy i clicked on this video

I really really enjoyed spending time in my evenings as a planet hunter. Thank you for putting it out there! ❤️

It does seem very simple to explain and it certainly does not involve 1. Aliens 2. Star Wars - Death Stars etc 3. Asteroid belts or 4. Black holes The strange pattern shown in the video of the Kepler effect is because we on earth are observing the planetary object passing the star in an elliptical orbit north to south travelling towards us. The other Kepler observations will be objects passing the same star at different elliptical orbits therefore creating smaller dips as they appear to pass more quickly to us as observers. I am certain that the results would be entirely different if observed from anywhere else except earth.

There were multiple structures passing in front of the star that moved from sync to un-sync to sync

WARNING!! Flat earthers may find this content disturbing!

Hopefully the James Webb Space Telescope will give us more insight about this star in 2018.

Blows my mind!

Now we know that this wasn't a Dyson sphere but it's still so freaking cool!

Is there a particular reason why they don't seem to be suspecting the star itself? They did consider whether it was young and surrounded by a cloud left over from formation, but aren't there a lot of possibilities like the star having recently ingested something large (planet scale or larger), and still roiling and irregular due to that? I'm no astrophysicist, and don't know if perhaps something like what I suggested might have a characteristic signature that is missing, but given the almost total lack of consideration of irregularities in the stars output itself (rather than output being blocked) makes me think that maybe there is some evidence that establishes fairly clearly that the star is regular enough that it couldn't be any oddity with the star, but must be something between it and our detector.

A debris field of two collided celestial bodies (two large solid planets now shattered into pieces) in an elliptical shape trapped orbiting the star would create such a light diminishing pattern. As far as the time period. The closer the object is to the sun, the longer it blocks light. The further the object, the shorter the duration. I don't feel like doing the math to give exact times and sizes, but you get the idea, and using some calculations you could recreate the hypothetical cloud of debris. So, two planets collided and created a large debris field around what remains of their cores so that gravity keeps them and their debris dancing around each other in a tight elliptical orbit (think rings of Saturn on a massive debris scale and angled in such a way as to create this light pattern to observers here). Highly plausible considering there's a high probability of many rogue planets drifting between solar systems, ejected by larger bodies in their host systems to drift alone through space until a sun draws them in (an event that may have very well occurred in our own solar system to give our current planetary alignments to the sun). If aliens were sufficiently advanced to build a structure so large, they'd be more likely to build a Dyson sphere and you wouldn't see the star at all because they'd be absorbing most of it's energy.

Kepler just detects the planets lined up in the earth’s direction. Imagine how many planets there really are.

Correction: The largest radio telescope in the world during that year and until 2020 was the one in Arecibo, Puerto Rico and not Green Bay. Today the largest one is located in China.

It's not a star, its the blinking eye of a giant cosmic space hamster.

I know this will get lost in the comments but when I'm alone I like to go in my garden cover myself with dirt and pretend I'm a carrot....

Could it be possible that the lack of symmetry shown in the graph is the result of a very large object being slowed down (to enter orbit? ) and then showing a different reading as it gained enough speed to reach escape velocity?

Imagine a civilization so much more advanced than ours that they just might be able to solve their energy needs by a means a little more practical than a colossal super megastructure Dyson Sphere.

... Carl Sagan was paraphrasing Steven Weinberg - the originator of the quote: "Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary evidence".

Maybe what we are witnessing is not something orbiting that star, but something orbiting us. Now who's to say it is not.

Any updates on this?

Per Wikipedia, in January 2021, a distant stellar-mass companion was reported, making Tabby's Star a binary stellar system.

an opaque object, like a planet or alien megastructure was passing in front of the star, it would block both red and blue light the same amount, says Wright. However, the astronomers found that blue light was blocked much more than red light during the star’s dimming. Since blue light has much shorter wavelengths than red light, it’s much more easily blocked by smaller materials, such as fine grains like dust. “This is characteristic of something that’s filtering the light,” says Wright. “That’s what you get when you have dust.”

have they ruled out an object blocking the light in a much much closer distance to us? Since then it wouldn't have to be anything as big in comparison

Could it be three planets in line or in sync with each other having an additive effect in blocking light. subsequent readings could be measuring the same planets not lined up or closely lined up????

What an honor! Tabby of ”tabby’s star” fame explaining her star to us herself!

"Earth is 11 times smaller than Jupiter." This sounded off to me, but she means by diameter not by volume, which is where most people's minds go to. By volume, Earth is actually 1300 times smaller.

Don't remember where I heard this, but what if there is a civilization out there more advanced than us, by 20 minutes? -g-

So nice !

Would something like this be how a planet being accepted into a new system would look like?

if NASA was involved, make sure you backup that data, don't want them to first lose the data and then destroy the technology!

This is so cool

That was Thor at Nidavellier 😂

6yrs ago 😳 Here I was thinking this happened no more than a few months ago. 😒 Yes we need an update ❗️

The phenomenon looks like a huge artificial lense orbiting the star to focus the energy to the orbiting planet behind.

The universe is the most amazing thing in the world. Oh wait.... That didn't make any sense =/

Could the variation in light be caused by internal causes like fusion reactions which absorb energy instead of emitting ? I don't know if synthesis of elements past Iron in the periodic table by fusion is endothermic ie energy absorbing instead of energy releasing

Thanks TED