His results are intriguing: "I do not believe it's possible to precisely match the day-792 light curve with a small number of entirely opaque objects," he writes. "What is likely required is a swarm or semi-transparent cloud".
That also fits with the length of the observed transits, which take multiple days, rather than the hours more typical for a solid structure. The model he comes up with for one transit looks like this:
Actually quite hard to spot, isn't it? Scroll back and forth between 0:10 and 0:20. It is there, but it's a very diffuse cloud that dims the whole star, making it hard to spot - only the very densest central portion of the cloud shows up, as a weak silhouette.
What does this rule out? Not much by itself - a swarm of dust or a swarm of small solar collectors would look about the same at this distance - but it adds to the growing pile of evidence that whatever's going on around Tabby's star is due to something diffuse but structured, rather than a few monolithic objects. So less this:
Above: The idea of a monolithic Dyson Sphere. Courtesy of popsci.com . |
... and more this (perhaps):
Above: A swarm of solar powered nanosats. Image courtesy of Wired.com |
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