'Alien Megastructure' Star Kickstarter Just Met Its Goal

They just reached the kickstarter budget for observing KIC 8462852 for an entire year from the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network. Which means it will do nothing but watch the unusual activities coming from the Tabby's star to figure out what's going on with the dimming.

popsci.com/alien-megastructure-star-just-met-its-kickstarter-goal

It's confirmed that it wasn't an alien megasctructure but my money is still on the comets. What you think Veeky Forums ?

>"Where's the Flux?"
>Not "What the Flux!?"
Missed opportunity

I science in America so underfunded that they need a kickstarter to make an observation campaign? It's really that bad?

It's not that science is underfunded, even though it might be, but the telescopes have lots of other places to look at and using them aint cheap. So they pretty much gathered enough budget to rent the telescope to look at KIC for a year.

Well, if the target was deemed that important by the astronomy community, they would have got some sort of funding one way or another. There are plenty of telescope that are mostly dedicated to robotically surveying known objects.

I just read the organisation behind that Las Cumbres Observatory telescope is private. So I have a feeling that they're just trying to make some money riding on the muh alien megastructure hype. A PR stunt with very limited (not non-existant, but very limited) scientific merit.

Well they didn't. KIC is lightyears away and most scientists didn't even entertain the possibility of any alien artifacts so there is really no reason to sit there expecting anything.

This is just the public getting hyped apparently like you said. It might be a nasty marketing thick to keep pumping up the hype through popsci journals even though it's probably a telescope issue and then announcing a kickstarter to drag the money out of curious peoples pockets. But I don't wanna think like that about scientists. And also a huge percentage of that money will eventually have to be spent on managing the telescope for a whole year.

>stare at alien megastructure for a year
>aliens get self-conscious and lash out
You've doomed us all.

i wish. we would finally have our first alium contact

Well, considering how difficult it is to have food when you're a researcher, I wouldn't blame them for using this to fund their research. I just hope that they will at least do some real science with the money.

>sir, we've finished our translation of the alien message.
>outstanding! well? what does it say?
>you're not going to like it sir.
>let's have it man!
>it... it says: "THE FUCK YE LOOKING AT KNOBHEAD? YE LOOKING AT MAH BIRD?! YE WANT STRIPIN' UP M8?! YE BEST FUCK OFF STARING AT OUR LASS RIGHT NOW OR I'LL FUCKIN' DO YE!!!"
>my god... shut down the telescopes!
>but sir-
>I SAID SHUT THEM DOWN DAMMIT!

Getting the middle finger message from a vague alien race is one of my biggest fictional fears. I'd spend everyday paranoid waiting in fear, looking up to see when they'll fill the skies and come rape every single one of us personally.

Money well spent.

ayyy

Didn't they say it was the telecope panels error and all the stars showed a 20% dimming just like Tabby ?
It's clearly not aliens I don't know why you're wanking a dead horse.

No, that wasn't confirmed.

Why else would all other star formations near Tabby's star show the same 20% drop if it wasn't for a telescope error ?

They didn't

All science programs/organizations are under attack for budget cuts in all countries. They will always be like that.

they shouldn't resort to scams though

How is crowdfunding a scam?

That was the long term dimming from historic observations, not many people in the field put much faith in that. The real puzzle is in the Kepler data.

read a deranged person talking about 1st contact happening on the 21st of this month, sit tight lad

I would be ticked if I wanted to use that telescope and then these people buy it up for a whole year to look at some fuck-far away place because muh aliens???

>if I wanted to use that telescope
then you would have to pay up, lad

It has been underfunded for ages and salary levels are tragic. You practically have to be a MGTOW and like the lifestyle of a monk to be a researcher.

Pic. related.


t. former researcher

No. I'd wager no one cared enough about this to write a grant proposal or no one cared enough that it was worth giving grant money to.

Wouldnt the pressure of radiation and particles push the sphere away if they were to build it asymmetrically like ops pics?

>18K for grad students
lol

try going to not-shit schools

>This is the average
Omg that is low why not try find better place and be good at it xDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

>I have no experience but want to sound cool
Thanks many PhD students wanting to remain in the West after concluding their degrees they are willing to accept tragic salaries. This started in 1989 after the massacre in Tienanmen Square. Thousands of Chinese students feared for their lives and were desperate to remain. Quite a few professors with funding an limited ethics split the salary funding for research assistants to twice as many Chinese with a newly minted PhD. This was during the high Tc craze and the publication count simply exploded with the large number of Chinese on slavery contracts.

Even today the R.A. salary is depressed, no matter how good your school was.

Also publication count matters a lot and the number of fabricated publications and fabricated results are on the increase. And then you get people like Clare Francis. My guess is that she was bypassed by a cheater and has sworn to go Monte Christo on the lot of them.

It is also a sign of the times that the institutions are not too bothered to look into the fabrications since it props up their publication counts.

All in all the situation is really bad.

> Chinese students feared for their lives
> professors with limited ethics
sounds like they saved some Chinese lives.

>It's confirmed that it wasn't an alien megasctructure
STFU. Nothing was confirmed. No one has an explanation of what it is.

it was :)

This. The aliens themselves said that it was no megastructure. Surely they wouldn't lie, would they?

no they didn't, and nobody contacted them, coz they don't exist :)
proving KIC aren't aliens

>sounds like they saved some Chinese lives.
Most likely they did, yes. I know of a few Chinese who were students back then and had very good reasons to fear for their lives. And yes, most likely Western economy benefited from numerous Chinese with PhD in sciences.

Problem is that salaries remain so low that you have great difficulties living on such a salary. Most people I know from my time as a PhD student and post doc have never gotten married. The job situation makes you totally unattractive.

So crowdfunding is an obvious solution here.

I guess that is the funding Grad students receive per annum while studying and doing research
I earn 18K a year so it makes sense.