Anomalous elements appear on stars, physicists speculate: or alien civilizations are dumping garbage

In the universe, only stars and above-level planets emit light, because they are constantly undergoing nuclear reactions inside them, and then radiate photons to the outside. Astronomers can learn basic information about a star by observing the conditions of the stars in the universe. But in the process of exploration, scientists also found some exceptions. For example, there is a special star in the constellation Centaurus about 355 light-years away from the earth. Scientists suspect that it is related to alien civilizations.

The scientist who first raised this suspicion was Jason Wright, an astrophysicist at Penn State University in the United States. He and his team discovered this by long-term tracking of a star numbered "hd101065" in the constellation Centaurus. An unusual change in the brightness of a star led Wright to believe that the star could be a nuclear waste dump for an alien civilization. So what kind of anomalous change led Wright to draw such inferences?

What is so special about the Przybirski Star?

The star in the constellation Centauri tracked by Wright's team is called "Puzbierski's Star" and was first discovered 60 years ago by Polish astronomer Anthony Pzbierski. Telescopes have already detected irregular changes in the star's brightness. Sixty years later, Wright's team at Penn State University observed the star again, this time using more advanced observation techniques, and detected the star's surface spectrum.

However, the Wright team found two special cases in the spectrum. The first case is that the star has a very low abundance of common elements such as iron and nickel, which is at least an order of magnitude lower than that of stars of the same type. The second situation is that a large number of radioactive elements appear in the spectrum of the star, which are basically in the last row or two of the periodic table, such as strontium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, etc. These elements are called "short-lived superheavy elements" because of their strong radioactivity, short life cycle and high element weight.

Under normal circumstances, there are very few short-lived superheavy elements in stars, and non-radioactive elements such as iron and nickel account for more. However, this time Wright's team made a completely different discovery in the spectrum, which made most researchers in the industry. were surprised. At first, researchers thought that these radioactive elements might be leftovers from supernova explosions, but subsequent studies found that this hypothesis was not true, so why did Przybirski's star have these anomalies?

Why does this star have so many short-lived superheavy elements?

In this regard, the Wright team proposed three hypotheses to explain the anomaly of Przybirski's star. The first hypothesis is that there may be neutron stars around the star, and neutron stars release a large number of positrons all the time. The accumulation of these positrons forms a wind-like fluid, the positron wind. When the positron wind collides with the star's atmosphere, it reacts with the heavier elements in it, creating heavier elements.

This hypothesis is theoretically valid, but there is still a lack of relevant observational data to prove the existence of neutron stars around Przybowski's star. The second hypothesis states that some unknown form of supernova explosion produced large quantities of short-lived superheavy elements, which were radiated into the surrounding stellar atmosphere as part of their own. Wright's team originally preferred this hypothesis, but later found it could not explain the existence of some of these short-lived superheavy elements.

After the first two hypotheses were both questioned, the Wright team proposed a third, more implausible hypothesis, which was mainly put forward by Wright, who believed that the short-lived superheavy elements on the Przybirsky Star were The alien civilization dumped it, in other words, this star is the "garbage dump" of the advanced alien civilization. Undoubtedly, after this hypothesis was put forward, it was also questioned by many scientists, who believed that Wright had been divorced from the actual situation and began to imagine.

However, Wright said in an interview with the media that he is not too concerned about the views of the world, because he is not the first person to make such a point. According to his introduction, in 1966, a physicist named Carl Sagan put forward a hypothesis in his book that alien civilizations may cause other civilizations to cause damage by sprinkling "salt" on stars. Attention, the "salt" here is not the salt we use in our daily life, but the raw material that can be used in nuclear reactions.

After a lapse of 14 years, two other physicists, Whitmere and Wright, first proposed the hypothesis of a "nuclear waste dumping site", which pointed out that some abnormally behaved stars may have dumped nuclear waste into them by advanced alien civilizations. caused by. It can be seen that Wright's ideas are not created out of nothing, but draw on the assumptions of predecessors, and can even be said to be in the same line. But this hypothesis is very difficult to test, so we can understand why most scientists criticize it.

What is a Dyson Sphere?

The theory of extraterrestrial civilization earlier than the "nuclear waste dump" is the "Dyson sphere", which is a concept proposed by physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960. It is a kind of energy that can wrap stars and then develop stellar energy. The huge device is essentially a nuclear fusion reactor. According to Freeman’s theory, the Dyson sphere is a celestial structure created by humans or advanced alien civilizations. It is mainly composed of satellites orbiting the sun. It is a technology that a civilization must master to upgrade its level.

As early as the beginning of the last century, the Soviet astronomer Kardashev proposed the hierarchy of cosmic civilizations. The first-level civilization is a planetary civilization and can only use planetary-level energy; the second-level civilization is a stellar civilization, which can use the entire star system. energy; the third-level civilization is a galaxy civilization, which can use the energy of the entire galaxy. Human civilization cannot even reach the first-level civilization, but Freeman believes that if humans want to leap from the first-level civilization to the second-level civilization, they must create a Dyson sphere.

By covering the sun with a Dyson sphere, humans can obtain a stable energy supply through this huge device, and then develop a more ambitious plan of cosmic exploration. After the Dyson sphere was proposed, many science fiction works have been imaginatively transformed on the basis of Freeman. Even astronomers have tried to use the Dyson sphere theory to explain irregular changes in the brightness of stars when observing special stars, such as this one. Star numbered "KIC 8462852".

In addition to Przybilski's Star, this planet is also believed to be associated with alien civilizations

The star, named Tabby's Star, is located about 1,480 light-years from Earth, between the constellations Lyra and Cygnus. Scientists used the Kepler space telescope to observe frequent and large changes in the brightness of Tabby's star. According to the record, the largest brightness change was as high as about 22%. What is the reason for such a large brightness change in Tabby's star? At first, some scientists suggested that giant planets may be blocking the star's light, but this explanation is not tenable.

Take the sun as an example. Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. According to observational records, it can only block up to 1% of the sun's light. There are few giant planets like Jupiter outside the solar system, let alone giant planets that can block 22% of the light of their host star. According to scientists, there is currently no theory to explain this phenomenon, and astronomer Jason Wright, also from Pennsylvania State University, has put forward a bold hypothesis.

He believes that there may be a huge Dyson sphere structure around Tabby's star, which was built by advanced alien civilizations to absorb the energy of the star. When an alien civilization draws a lot of energy from a star, the nuclear fusion reactions inside the star weaken, causing a decrease in brightness. The frequent brightness changes of Tabby's star can be explained by the fact that alien civilizations frequently obtain energy from Tabby's star.

After the hypothesis was put forward, it also caused a lot of controversy in the scientific community. Scientists who opposed the hypothesis believed that the Dyson sphere was only a theoretical model and could not appear in the actual universe. But beyond that, there's no better theory to explain how Tabby's brightness varies.

What are the effects of dumping nuclear waste into nature?

Speaking of dumping nuclear waste, this reminds the author of a major event that happened in the world some time ago - Japan announced the discharge of nuclear waste into the ocean. Immediately after the decision was made public by the media, it caused an international sensation, with many countries condemning Japan's irresponsible attitude, because the nuclear waste water they discharge is likely to contain radioactive materials, which once flowed into the ocean will have a global impact. So what will be the ultimate consequences of this dumping of nuclear waste into nature?

The first is to cause harm to the human body. The radioactive substances in nuclear waste can enter the human body or cause harm to the human body in various ways, such as entering from the respiratory tract, entering from the skin wound and so on. People who are exposed to radiation will experience fatigue, dizziness, insomnia, etc. in light, and leukemia, canceration, deformity, etc. in severe cases, which will increase the probability of genetic diseases in the human population, and also lead to increased probability of genetic diseases.

Secondly, it has a serious impact on the natural environment and natural organisms. The nuclear waste water poured into the ocean will spread to the whole world with the movement of ocean currents, which will lead to the spread of the impact on local marine organisms to the whole world. In the 1980s, the Chernobyl disaster occurred in the Soviet Union, which turned the city into a dead city. People still dare not approach the city, which shows how far-reaching the impact of nuclear radiation on the environment is.

All in all, the harm that humans inflict on the natural world will eventually backfire on humans. Nuclear waste water will mutate marine organisms, and humans will also be affected by eating marine organisms. Therefore, a country really has to be very cautious when dealing with matters related to nuclear reactions.