Przybylski's Star

By TLS

I recently saw this on the YouTube channel Cool Worlds with Professor David Kipping. The first part of this post will be a very brief summary of that video, simply for reference. The second part, which is the point of this post, will be some of my eccentric thoughts on this particular situation.

In the video Professor Kipping describes this star in some detail, at least for us amateur’s. The star is around 356 light-years away and this I think, provides some interesting possibilities which I’ll get into later.

The bulk of Professor Kipping’s focus is on the spectral analysis of this star. Essentially the star seems to have elements in it which it shouldn’t, at least not without help. The elements in question (which I won’t list here because it’s extensive and pointless for us really, watch the video) have very short half-lives. Like hundreds or thousands instead of millions or billions of years. The elements simply shouldn’t be there.

In the video the Professor outlines three possibilities:

1) These elements have never actually been analysed by a spectrometer so the researchers are using theoretical models for their evaluations. This point needs expanded a bit. Almost all, or maybe all, of the elements causing the stir are on the man-made section of the Periodic Table. This means they don’t exist in nature. Also, if it were just one or two elements detected it would be easy to push this aside. But there are a lot, the video high-lights this in a humorous way. So each theoretical model would have to be wrong, possible but…

2) Island of Stability, that is, elements much farther up the periodic table than we have produced. These could then potentially have been created in some form of extremely rare star and somewhere there may be elements that become stable and therefore can stick around for a long time. These would then, possibly, be able to decay into the elements being detected. Why this hasn’t been detected anywhere else in the universe would be a seperate question.

And lastly,

3) Professor Kipping grudgingly admits, possibly someone put them there. (Insert scary music here) DUNT! Dunt! Dunnnn!

Ok, so option 1 and 2, boring and no big deal, standard stuff. Option 3? If true, very not boring and a very big deal ! So, here is what I think about this, if option 3 turns out true.

First, the star is 350 something light-years away. That means if someone is there (and they don’t have interstellar travel) they don’t necessarily know we’re here. They probably know life is here, but us? Probably no because they can only see us as we were 356 years ago, roughly the year 1668. I’m not too sure how big of a global impact we were having at that time.

Second, if someone is there they most likely don’t, or no longer, use radio for communication. That’s pretty close so if they were currently blasting out radio we would most likely have detected it. But if they were using radio and then moved on to something else, their radio transmission bubble has passed us by at this point. This would be one big reason why we didn’t detect them earlier.

Third, space travel for them must be easy or at least economical. It would require enormous amounts of these elements to be detectable which would require a lot of trips, able to move enormous loads, or able to manufacture in space. So either this star is a toxic waste dump or a beacon.

Fourth, back in 1980 a couple scientists wrote a paper predicting this kind of behavior by a potential alien civilization. Dumping material into a star for waste disposal or to make the star stand out. The elements going in shouldn’t or couldn’t exist in nature so this star would be a huge red flag for any other civilization. The elements in question in this star weren’t detected until 2008. Prediction then detection.

Fifth, what’s going on around Przybylski's Star has been happening for a long time. If someone is there and they did a one time dump or short-term dumps, the chances of us catching that isolated event are extremely small. But if they’ve been doing it for a long time? Maybe we would catch a glimpse, such as we possibly have.

These are just the initial thoughts that flashed through my head when I watched this video which I just wanted to articulate. Everything is very speculative still with zero solid data. All the options will have to be checked and rechecked and every possible option pursued to eventually find a natural explanation. As the saying goes “It’s never aliens…” …at least until it is.

If you enjoy thinking about the mysteries that keep scientists up at night, and the wild “what ifs” that make life interesting, subscribe to Multiple Views and…News? For more reflections on space, science, and the strange corners of our universe. Let’s keep asking questions that don’t have easy answers.

Clip art

<a href="https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/painting-spaceship-being-lifted-up-by-galaxy_41200315.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=1&uuid=2fdf7a4b-75ac-4f21-b5db-07f715a4c471">Image by chandlervid85 on Freepik</a>