Image credit: Copyright: Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory)
This week’s big news was a star identified by the Kepler Space Telescope which may harbour structures created by an advanced technological civilisation. I asked Brian Clegg, author of Exploring the Universe and Before the Big Bang for his thoughts on the matter:
“We have a long history of reading too much into observations – not surprising really as we understand the world through patterns, and it’s all too easy to see patterns where they don’t exist. Sometimes that makes bogeymen under the bed, sometimes, a surprising observation in space, whether it’s a pyramid on Mars or an apparent artificial structure around a distant star. Occam’s razor says let’s assume it’s a collection of debris until we get any better evidence to the contrary. But it keeps the media happy.”
For more detail, Brian recommended this article.
