Are Those Really Alien Megastructures? How Astronomers Plan To Investigate

There’s something weird happening around a faraway star.

Skywatchers have noticed something “bizarre” in the data from the planet-hunting Kepler telescope. Located 1,480 light-years away, a star named KIC 8462852 has something big circling around it, and it’s not a planet.

The mysterious object(s) are blocking up to 20 percent of the star’s light, which is much, much more than even a Jupiter-sized planet would block.

Siemion and two other astronomers have suggested an alternate explanation that may be even less likely than comets, but still very intriguing: Perhaps the star’s light is being blocked by huge pieces of alien architecture.