Gigantic Chinese Telescope To Join Hunt For Extraterrestrials And Alien Megastructure

China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), which is currently the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, will reportedly join the search for intelligent extraterrestrials that could be building a megastructure around the star KIC 8462852, also called Tabby's Star. At the moment, the Breakthrough Listen SETI project is engaged in the project, which aims to eavesdrop on the star system.  

"The FAST telescope will be absolutely incredible for conducting extremely sensitive searches of Tabby's star for evidence of technologically produced radio emissions," said Andrew Siemion of the Breakthrough Listen SETI project. "We are very excited to work with our colleagues in China on conducting SETI observations with FAST, including of Tabby's star. Within its frequency range, FAST is the most sensitive telescope in the world capable of conducting SETI observations of Tabby's star, and will be able to detect the weakest signals." Incidentally, FAST located in China's southwestern Guizhou province is nearly 200 meters wider than Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

The Tabby's star had garnered the interest of astronomers after mysterious dimming events were seen associated with it. The dimming events were recorded by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope as transits, i.e. some celestial body orbiting around the star causing a dip in brightness of the latter. Usually transit events related to planets orbiting its star are said to block the star's light by a fraction of one percent. However, in the case of Tabby's Star, the dip in brightness was up to 22%.

Astronomers have been intrigued by the dimming linked to Tabby's Star. Scientists have also attributed the dip to a cloud of comets; however that theory couldn't be accepted due to a lack of evidence. As per an article on Space website, the Tabby's Star's mysterious dip could be due to an overlooked phenomenon or an undiscovered type of natural celestial cause. However, according to reports, what if the dimming is caused by an advanced alien civilization which is in the process of building a megastructure to harness energy from the star?

Of course, the explanation sounds like some farfetched sci-fi fiction, but the Breakthrough Listen wants to study, or rather listen to, the star, and now the project is reportedly going to take the help of FAST. However, at the moment, the dates for the collaboration are still not clear. According to a source it could be up to two years before FAST is used to aid the Breakthrough Listen Project by SETI.