In 2015, the same year an immense observatory on Earth captured proof of the 4D fabric of spacetime, scientists began toying with a rather far-fetched idea: If intelligent aliens are out there, might they have tried making a scientific megastructure of their own? And if they did, can we find it? Actually, have we already?
Yes, I am being fully serious. It all begins with a fascinating paper entitled "Planet Hunters IX. KIC 8462852 – where's the flux?"
In this paper, a crew of researchers presented their analysis of data gleaned from NASA's Kepler telescope. It concerned a star that resides about 1,470 light-years from where you're sitting named KIC 8462852, or Boyajian's Star in a nod to the study's lead author. According to the team's results, Boyajian's Star seemed to exhibit a bunch of very peculiar dips in light.
Normally, when studying a star from our vantage point in the cosmos, telescopes can naturally see dips in starlight whenever something passes between them and the star itself. Imagine you're staring at a bright lightbulb, then someone passes in front of the lightbulb. Its emissions would appear interrupted. Usually, as you may expect, an exoplanet causes such dimming when orbiting its stellar host — but… not for Boyajian's Star.
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