Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852): Unexplained Dimming, Competing Explanations, and the Breakthrough Listen Search for Signals

To the point

Tabby’s Star is a distant star that dims in strange, unpredictable ways, leading scientists like Tabetha Boyajian and Jason Wright to consider everything from comets and debris to the possibility of an alien Dyson Sphere, while Breakthrough Listen, backed by Yuri Milner, searches for intelligent signals—though most think a natural explanation is most likely.

The Search Is On For Alien Signals Around Tabbys Star
universetoday.com

The Search Is On For Alien Signals Around Tabbys Star

Tabby’s Star (KIC 8462852), about 1,480 light-years away, exhibits irregular dimming up to 22% not explained by standard planetary transits or known stellar processes, prompting hypotheses from a swarm of comets to a Dyson Sphere proposed by Jason Wright, while Breakthrough Listen observations with the Green Bank Telescope—eight hours on Oct. 26 with additional nights planned—searched for narrowband signals as UC Berkeley astronomers led by Tabetha Boyajian pursue the most likely natural explanation.