Dyson Sphere under construction?

[vorlon13]

An orbit 'hugging' an F type star's Roche limit will be measured in days, not months/years . . . .

[Anomalocaris]

An orbit 'hugging' an F type star's Roche limit will be measured in days, not months/years . . . .

Around 18 hours, I believe, but if the vapor cloud spreads out to form a turbulent toroid than it doesn't have to exhibit any sort of periodicity correlated with its orbital period.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Also, the proffered comet cloud theory seems to me to be very weak, why this one star has something like that (that I still don't think would produce the lightcurve seen, BTW) and no other star has something same/similar is a real poser.

No other star so far observed.

[Anomalocaris]

Also, the proffered comet cloud theory seems to me to be very weak, why this one star has something like that (that I still don't think would produce the lightcurve seen, BTW) and no other star has something same/similar is a real poser.

No other star so far observed.

The rarity can be accounted for if the process which causes the irregular dimming lasts only a short time in the life of any star that undogoes a similar process.  

The distinegrating planet hypothesis I advanced accounts for the rarity because if the planetary disintegration process periodically creates dust/vapors outburst large enough to obscure sizable portion of the star's disk, then the mass loss from the planet must be rapid and the planet would be  consumed in relatively short time.

If it takes a thousand years to consume the planet, and the typical star that ever had a large planet distingrate near the Roche limit lives for 10 billion years, then only 1 in 5 million stars which has ever had this process would be undergoing this process when we happen to be looking at it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No other star so far observed.

The rarity can be accounted for if the process which causes the irregular dimming lasts only a short time in the life of any star that undogoes a similar process.  

The distinegrating planet hypothesis I advanced accounts for the rarity because if the planetary disintegration process periodically creates dust/vapors outburst large enough to obscure sizable portion of the star's disk, then the mass loss from the planet must be rapid and the planet would be  consumed in relatively short time.

If it takes a thousand years to consume the planet, and the typical star that ever had a large planet distingrate near the Roche limit lives for 10 billion years, then only 1 in 5 million stars which has ever had this process would be undergoing this process when we happen to be looking at it.

Yes, for "any star that undogoes a similar process." 

But how many stars do that? Important question. If many, then this is just an event like many others. If none, then we have an interesting event going on. But even then we don't know if it's natural or artificial.

[Anomalocaris]

The rarity can be accounted for if the process which causes the irregular dimming lasts only a short time in the life of any star that undogoes a similar process.  

The distinegrating planet hypothesis I advanced accounts for the rarity because if the planetary disintegration process periodically creates dust/vapors outburst large enough to obscure sizable portion of the star's disk, then the mass loss from the planet must be rapid and the planet would be  consumed in relatively short time.

If it takes a thousand years to consume the planet, and the typical star that ever had a large planet distingrate near the Roche limit lives for 10 billion years, then only 1 in 5 million stars which has ever had this process would be undergoing this process when we happen to be looking at it.

Yes, for "any star that undogoes a similar process." 

But how many stars do that? Important question. If many, then this is just an event like many others. If none, then we have an interesting event going on. But even then we don't know if it's natural or artificial.

My guess is this process is quite common.

One surprising thing that came out of the survey of all the planetary systems we discovered is in a large percentage of them, there is one or more large, Neptune to Jupiter sized planets orbiting extremely close to the parent star, with orbital period of just a few days. Since these planets almost certainly couldn't form there, it appears there is a some common process that robs some or all of the planets formed in outer reaches of a planetary system of their orbital energy and cause them to spiral in towards the parent star during early days of the planetary system's life. There is no known process that would stop a planet from spiraling all the way to,the Roche limit and distingrate. Indeed many stars' absorption spectrum seems enriched in heavy elements that should not be there in a prestine star's atmosphere, and probably came from consuming the debris of planets which spiraled all the way to the Roche Limit.

So this suggest to me a substantial percentage of all stars that has ever harbors a planetary system has pulled one or more planets in very close until the victim planets were destroyed. In this system we happen to catch the process of destruction in the act.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So we will find many more of these, making it less likely it's an artificial event?

[Anomalocaris]

So we will find many more of these, making it less likely it's an artificial event?

We probably will eventually find another, but it might take a long time if the act is indeed very brief compared to the life of stars. So the percentage of stars currently undergoing this process must be vanishingly small even if a large percentage of star underwent this process at one time or another.

But I suspect we will eventually learn to identify evidence thaat such a process had taken place in an planetary system even if the process is not currently occurring. One possible evidence might be a sizeable number of stars have elevated levels of heavy metal in their atmospheres. We may also refine our model of planetary formation to better model the process whereby an outer planet is dragged in towards the parent star, and how planets of different types behave when they are pulled very close to the parent star, so we can better match the observed behavior to a detailed model.

[vorlon13]

So far, spectra taken during this dimming event are showing insignificant differences from ones taken last summer when a dimming event was not underway.


And an early analysis of that is "hmmmmmmmm".

[The Valkyrie]

It's a fascinating concept but I doubt it very much.

I've always enjoyed reading the speculation from this sort of story.

99.99 per cent probability it's a natural phenomenon.

But then, perhaps certain individuals who will post videos on YouTube will be able to tell us conclusively that it's an alien construct. Right, Scoobs?