Boyajian’s star, a faint and unprepossessing presence in the constellation of Cygnus, attracted astronomers’ attention when it began to flicker alarmingly.
The lecture discussed explanations for its behaviour, from disintegrating comets to alien megastructures, and considered how modern astronomy hunts for the truly unusual objects in the Universe.
For this task, the involvement of large numbers of volunteers – citizen scientists – was essential, for example via the Zooniverse platform, which invites you to participate in classifying galaxies and discovering planets.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/sites/default/files/transcript/2024-04-29-1800_Lintott-T.pdf
Further reading
Many of these topics are explored at greater length in Professor Lintott’s new book: Our Accidental Universe, Trova, 2024. Available now!
Up-to-date statistics and details of exoplanet discoveries are always available at https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/
You can help us try to find planets at http://www.planethunters.org.
The new Planet Hunters NGTS discovery is described in O’Brien et al, Astronomical Journal, 167, 5, 238: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ad32c8. Previous Planet Hunters discoveries are listed at Zooniverse.org/publications.
Professor Lintott’s original paper on Boyajian’s Star is ‘Planet Hunters IX. KIC 8462852 – where’s the flux?’, Boyajian et al, 2016 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), 457, 4 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016MNRAS.457.3988B/abstract
The alien suggestion was made by ‘The G^ Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies. IV. The Signatures and Information Content of Transiting Megastructures ‘, Wright et al, 2016 Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), 816, 1, 17 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016ApJ…816…17W/abstract
See also:
‘Secular Dimming on KIC 8462852 following its consumption of a planet’, Metzger, Shen & Stone, 2017, MNRAS, 468, 4, 4399 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017MNRAS.468.4399M/abstract
‘The First Post-Kepler Brightness Dips of KIC 8462852’, Boyajian et al. 2018, ApJ Letters, 853, L8 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ApJ…853L…8B/abstract
For a summary of recent thinking on technosignature searches see Lazio et al: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.15518
© Professor Chris Lintott, 2024
Professor Chris Lintott
Professor of Astronomy (2023-)
Professor Chris Lintott is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and a Research Fellow at New College.
Having been educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge and University College London, his research now ranges from understanding how galaxies form and evolve, to using machine learning to find the most unusual things in the Universe, to predicting the properties of visiting interstellar asteroids. He is Principal Investigator of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, which provides opportunities for more than two million online volunteers to contribute to scientific research, and which was the topic of his first book, ‘The Crowd and the Cosmos’.
Professor Lintott is best known for presenting the BBC’s long-running Sky at Night program, and as an accomplished lecturer. Away from work, he cooks, suffers through being a fan of Torquay United and Somerset cricket, and spends time with a rescued lurcher, Mr Max, with whom he presents the Dog Stars podcast.
https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/lintott
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Lintott
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/4jgzzH6CBH7b5K0qblb73nZ/professor-chris-lintott
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