Extraterrestrial life has been conceptualized as far back as the 16th century, by the likes of

Giordano Bruno. We've discussed in class recent findings: Tabby's Star and the unexplainable
phenomenon of irregular periods of dimming and the hypotheses concerning Dyson Sphere's and
extraterrestrial technology, Oumuamua... We've also discussed the limitations of our technology,
the vastness of our universe and other factors precluding our ability to detect extraterrestrial life.
What do you see in the next few decades regarding the trajectory of our research and findings on
extraterrstrial life in the universe?

Tabetha Boyajian
One of the theories hypotheses pointing towards intelligent extraterrestrial life involved the
notion of a Dyson Sphere...***
Concerning irregular dimmings... What are some factors, in general, that cause irregular
dimmings? Some hypotheses for Tabby's Star include uneven dust rings orbiting the star, a
swarm of comet fragments...
One possible hypothesis of the irregular dimmings was changes in efficiency of heat transport in
the star to its photosphere. Could you explain this idea further?
A new hypothesis that has been reported is the notion of disruption of an orphaned exomoon.
How did you know to continue focusing on KIC 8462852? 2009's observation was clearly
irregular (duration, asymmetry of the dip), but couldn't it have been written up as an anomaly
before the recurrence of observations in 2011 and 2013?***

Greg Laughlin
How did you determine the shape and size of Oumuamua? (How were you able to come to an
assumption of an ellipsoid shape with a pendulum-like rotation?)
"If ‘Oumuamua is indeed an ejected protoplanetary diskor exo-Oort cloud object (Jewitt et al.
2017), it implies asize-frequency distribution skewed more toward smallerbodies than expected
from studies of the Solar System." Can you explain this statement further?