Something strange happens in KIC 8462852 , a star located 1,480 light years from Earth, between the constellations of the Swan and Lyra. Occasionally, its light diminishes up to 20%, a “blackout” that cannot be justified by the transit of an exoplanet , the usual explanation in these cases.
Although scientists are reluctant to venture the extraterrestrial hypothesis, they do not rule out that the origin of this anomaly is the passage of a “swarm of structures” , as astronomer Jason Wright of Penn State University told The Independent newspaper. Others prefer to think, for example, that the flicker is produced by a group of megacomets, since there is no trace of light and radio signals generated, presumably, by an alien intelligence.
The finding was the result of the so-called citizen science : it was produced thanks to the analysis of the data, sent from the Kepler space telescope, by the Internet users assigned to the Planet Hunters project. Yale University astronomer Tabetha Boyajian wants to further investigate the enigma, but requires funding .
The problem is that Boyajian and his team are assigned 200 hours of observation at the Las Cumbres Observatory , a private network of telescopes distributed throughout the world. When they are spent, they would need $ 100,000 to get another year of continuous monitoring of KIC 8462852, with the possibility of capturing another eclipse and studying it thoroughly.
The idea is to locate a signal that arouses the curiosity of the scientific community and that their telescopes also focus on the mysterious star. To get the funds, Boyajian has presented his project on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter . If you are interested, you can donate here.
