On Friday, scientists sounded the alarm: The rule-defying Tabby’s Star — the so-called “alien megastructure” — was officially losing light yet again.

But unlike the dramatic dimming event of two years ago, scientists are now prepared and organized to be able to figure out what the hell is going on with Tabby’s Star, thanks to the leadership of its namesake, Tabetha Boyajian.

Two years ago, Boyajian — now an astrophysicist at Louisiana State University — analyzed month’s-old data from NASA’s Kepler telescope, which has its eye trained on thousands of stars in a specific part of the universe. One star, KIC 8462852, behaved like no other. At one point, the star lost nearly a quarter of its radiance, an inexplicable event that earned it the “alien megastructure” name. Since the discovery, the star continues to flummox scientists. Although a number of decent theories have emerged, scientists have been eagerly waiting for Tabby’s Star to begin dimming again, giving them an opportunity to observe it as the darkening events unfold.

“It’s critical to keep an eye on it, stay on our toes, and see what comes,” Boyajian told Inverse.

The initial dip, announced on Friday, showed a three percent drop in radiance – which is quite a bit. If alien observers 1,300 light-years away from Earth were to watch our sun lose three percent of its radiance, something the size of Jupiter would have to obstruct the sun’s light.

Throughout the weekend, astronomers around the world observed the erratic star and sent their data to Boyajian, the ad-hoc expert for the star-watching operation. “This is the central clearing house for all the observations coming in,” she says.

Two NASA images of Tabby's Star, taken in Infrared (right) and UV. The star is located 1,300 light years from Earth.

The assumption is that something with a lot of mass is blocking out a considerable portion of Tabby’s light – perhaps a group of orbiting comets, a giant mess of planetary leftovers, or (probably unlikely) an alien superstructure that intelligent beings use to harness the star’s energy. To find out, scientists are looking at the spectrums of light coming from Tabby’s Star, because light is manipulated as it travels through different things, like expansive bodies of gas or hot cosmic dust. Boyajian hopes that these observations will reveal important insights about what this obstructing matter is, along with its temperature and density.

Although there are compelling ideas about what might be blocking the light, Boyajian doesn’t yet favor any particular hypothesis. “At this point I’m keeping an open mind,” she says. “We’re trying to stay responsible about not drawing any early conclusions.”

As of Monday, May 22, the three percent dip ended, as shown in the graph below, tweeted by Jason Wright, an astrophysicist at Penn State University. But, explains Boyajian, the previous dimming events came in clusters, so there’s a “good possibility that another event or dip will happen.”

Although the new activity just began, some scientists propose that the dimming events may keep to a schedule. The earlier Kepler data, examined by Boyajian, showed that the dips might occur around every two years. “It’s suggestive of something that is periodically dimming the star – perhaps something bound to the star,” says Brian Metzger, an astrophysicist at Columbia University.

In January, Metzger published a study proposing that an Earth-sized planet or moon got kicked a bit too close to Tabby’s Star, allowing Tabby to shred off its surface and mantle. Now, that big messy pile of planetary debris could be orbiting Tabby’s Star on a pretty consistent basis, periodically blotching out a significant amount of its light.

If so, scientists using infrared telescopes should be able to find some evidence of this hot debris, especially when it passes close to Tabby’s Star and gets sizzled by the star’s heat. “If we see this infrared evidence it will be strong support of our model,” explains Metzger.

As for a massive Dyson sphere – an alien super-structure designed to surround and harness a star’s energy – it’s still in the running, although it’s probably in last place. A distant last.

“Technically we haven’t ruled out anything,” says Metzger. “Let’s talk about the Dyson sphere when we have all the cards on the table.”

Photos via NASA, Flickr / NASA Goddard Photo and Video

We have reached a turning point in society. According to renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, the next 100 years of science will determine whether we perish or thrive. Will we remain a Type 0 civilization, or will we advance and make our way into the stars?

Experts assert that, as a civilization grows larger and becomes more advanced, its energy demands will increase rapidly due to its population growth and the energy requirements of its various machines. With this in mind, the Kardashev scale was developed as a way of measuring a civilization’s technological advancement based upon how much usable energy it has at its disposal (this was originally just tied to energy available for communications, but has since been expanded).

MEET THE KARDASHEV SCALE

Credit: Chris Cold

The scale was originally designed in 1964 by the Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev (who was looking for signs of extraterrestrial life within cosmic signals). It has 3 base classes, each with an energy disposal level: Type I (10¹⁶W), Type II (10²⁶W), and Type III (10³⁶W). Other astronomers have extended the scale to Type IV (10⁴⁶W) and Type V (the energy available to this kind of civilization would equal that of all energy available in not just our universe, but in all universes and in all time-lines). These additions consider both energy access as well as the amount of knowledge the civilizations have access to.

First, it is important to note that the human race is not even on this scale yet. Since we still sustain our energy needs from dead plants and animals, here on Earth, we are a lowly Type 0 civilization (and we have a LONG way to go before being promoted to a type I civilization). Kaku tends to believe that, all things taken into consideration, we will reach Type I in 100 – 200 years time. But what does each of these categories actually stand for in literal terms?

A Type I designation is a given to species who have been able to harness all the energy that is available from a neighboring star, gathering and storing it to meet the energy demands of a growing population. This means that we would need to boost our current energy production over 100,000 times to reach this status. However, being able to harness all Earth’s energy would also mean that we could have control over all natural forces. Human beings could control volcanoes, the weather, and even earthquakes! (At least, that is the idea.) These kinds of feats are hard to believe, but compared to the advances that may still be to come, these are just basic and primitive levels of control (it’s absolutely nothing compared to the capabilities of societies with higher rankings).

A Dyson Sphere

(Credit: Slawek Wojtowicz)

The next step up – a Type II civilization – can harness the power of their entire star (not merely transforming starlight into energy, but controlling the star). Several methods for this have been proposed. The most popular of which is the hypothetical ‘Dyson Sphere.’ This device, if you want to call it that, would encompass every single inch of the star, gathering most (if not all) of its energy output and transferring it to a planet for later use. Alternatively, if fusion power (the mechanism that powers stars) had been mastered by the race, a reactor on a truly immense scale could be used to satisfy their needs. Nearby gas giants can be utilized for their hydrogen, slowly drained of life by an orbiting reactor.

What would this much energy mean for a species? Well, nothing known to science could wipe out a Type II civilization. Take, for instance, if humans survived long enough to reach this status, and a moon sized object entered our solar system on a collision course with our little blue planet–we’d have the ability to vaporize it out of existence. Or if we had time, we could move our planet out of the way, completely dodging it. But let’s say we didn’t want to move Earth… are there any other options? Well yes, because we’d have the capability to move Jupiter, or another planet of our choice, into the way – pretty cool, right?

A Cyborg (Credit: Justin Lee)

So we’ve gone from having control over a planet, to a star, which has resulted in us harboring enough “disposable” energy to essentially make our civilization immune to extinction. But now, onto Type III, where a species then becomes galactic traversers with knowledge of everything having to do with energy, resulting in them becoming a master race. In terms of humans, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution – both biological and mechanical – may result in the inhabitants of this type III civilization being incredibly different from the human race as we know it. These may be cyborgs (or cybernetic organism, beings both biological and robotic), with the descendants of regular humans being a sub-species among the now-highly advanced society. These wholly biological humans would likely be seen as being disabled, inferior, or unevolved by their cybernetic counterparts.

At this stage, we would have developed colonies of robots that are capable of ‘self replication’; their population may increase into the millions as they spread out across the galaxy, colonizing star after star. And these being might build Dyson Spheres to encapsulate each one, creating a huge network that would carry energy back to the home planet. But stretching over the galaxy in such a manner would face several problems; namely, the species would be constrained by the laws of physics. Particularly, light-speed travel. That is, unless they develop a working warp drive, or use that immaculate energy cache to master wormhole teleportation (two things that remain theoretical for the time being), they can only get so far.

An artist rendering of such a civilization

(Credit: Sid Meier’s Civilization IV)

Kardashev believed a Type IV civilization was ‘too’ advanced and didn’t go beyond Type III on his scale. He thought that, surely, this would be the extent of any species’ ability. Many think so, but a few believe there is a further level that could be achieved. (I mean, surely there is a limit?) Type IV civilizations would almost be able to harness the energy content of the entire universe and with that, they could traverse the accelerating expansion of space (furthermore, advance races of these species may live inside supermassive black holes). To previous methods of generating energy, these kinds of feats are considered impossible. A Type IV civilization would need to tap into energy sources unknown to us using strange, or currently unknown, laws of physics.

Type V. Yes, Type V might just be the next possible advancement to such a civilization. Here beings would be like gods, having the knowledge to manipulate the universe as they please. Now, as I said, humans are a very, very long way from ever reaching anything like this. But it’s not to say that it cannot be achieved as long as we take care of Earth and each other. To do so, the first step is to preserve our tiny home, extinguish war, and continue to support scientific advances and discoveries.