The most mysterious star in the universe | Tabetha Boyajian

Prevodilac: Milenka Okuka Lektor: Mile Živković

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,

Izvanredne tvrdnje zahtevaju izvanredne dokaze,

and it is my job, my responsibility, as an astronomer

a moj je posao, moja odgovornost kao astronoma,

to remind people that alien hypotheses should always be a last resort.

da podsetim ljude da su pretpostavke o vanzemaljcima uvek poslednje uporište.

Now, I want to tell you a story about that.

Sad želim da vam ispričam priču o tome.

It involves data from a NASA mission,

Ona sadrži podatke sa NASA-ine misije,

ordinary people and one of the most extraordinary stars in our galaxy.

obične ljude i jednu od najizvanrednijih zvezda u našoj galaksiji.

It began in 2009 with the launch of NASA's Kepler mission.

Počinje 2009, lansiranjem NASA-ine misije Kepler.

Kepler's main scientific objective

Keplerov glavni naučni cilj

was to find planets outside of our solar system.

je bio da pronađe planete van našeg solarnog sistema.

It did this by staring at a single field in the sky,

On je to radio tako što bi zurio u jedno polje na nebu,

this one, with all the tiny boxes.

ovo, sa svim tim malim poljima.

And in this one field,

A u ovom polju

it monitored the brightness of over 150,000 stars

je nadgledao sjaj preko 150,000 zvezda

continuously for four years,

u kontinuitetu od četiri godine,

taking a data point every 30 minutes.

uzimajući jedinice podataka na svakih 30 minuta.

It was looking for what astronomers call a transit.

Tražio je ono što astronomi zovu tranzitom.

This is when the planet's orbit is aligned in our line of sight,

To je kad se planetarna orbita poravna s našom linijom horizonta,

just so that the planet crosses in front of a star.

prosto se radi o prolasku planete ispred zvezde.

And when this happens, it blocks out a tiny bit of starlight,

A kad se ovo desi, maleni deo zvezdane svetlosti je blokiran,

which you can see as a dip in this curve.

što je prikazano u vidu pada na ovoj krivoj.

And so the team at NASA had developed very sophisticated computers

Pa je NASA-ina ekipa razvila veoma prefinjene kompjutere

to search for transits in all the Kepler data.

da bi tragali za tranzitima kroz sve Keplerove podatke.

At the same time of the first data release,

Istovremeno sa prvom objavom podataka,

astronomers at Yale were wondering an interesting thing:

astronomi na Jejlu su se zapitali nešto zanimljivo:

What if computers missed something?

šta ako je kompjuterima nešto promaklo?

And so we launched the citizen science project called Planet Hunters

Te smo pokrenuli projekat građana naučnika pod nazivom Lovci na planete,

to have people look at the same data.

da bi ljudi pregledali iste te podatke.

The human brain has an amazing ability for pattern recognition,

Ljudski mozak ima neverovatnu sposobnost prepoznavanja obrazaca,

sometimes even better than a computer.

ponekad čak i bolju od kompjutera.

However, there was a lot of skepticism around this.

Međutim, mnogo je bilo skepse oko ovoga.

My colleague, Debra Fischer, founder of the Planet Hunters project,

Moja koleginica Debra Fišer, osnivačica projekta Lovci na planete,

said that people at the time were saying,

rekla je da su ljudi tada govorili:

"You're crazy. There's no way that a computer will miss a signal."

"Luda si. Nema šanse da bi kompjuteru promakao signal."

And so it was on, the classic human versus machine gamble.

Pa je to bila klasična opklada ljudi protiv mašine.

And if we found one planet, we would be thrilled.

A ako bismo pronašli jednu planetu, bili bismo oduševljeni.

When I joined the team four years ago,

Kada sam se priključila ekipi pre četiri godine,

we had already found a couple.

već smo bili našli nekolike.

And today, with the help of over 300,000 science enthusiasts,

A do danas smo uz pomoć preko 300,000 naučnih entuzijasta

we have found dozens,

pronašli na desetine,

and we've also found one of the most mysterious stars

a takođe smo pronašli jednu od najtajanstvenijih zvezda

in our galaxy.

u našoj galaksiji.

So to understand this,

Kako biste razumeli ovo,

let me show you what a normal transit in Kepler data looks like.

dozvolite da pokažem kako izgleda normalan tranzit u Keplerovim podacima.

On this graph on the left-hand side you have the amount of light,

Na ovom grafikonu, s leve strane, imate količinu svetlosti,

and on the bottom is time.

a na dnu je vreme.

The white line is light just from the star,

Bela linija je svetlost samo od zvezde,

what astronomers call a light curve.

ono što astronomi zovu svetlosnom krivom.

Now, when a planet transits a star, it blocks out a little bit of this light,

Sad, kad planeta prolazi ispred zvezde, blokira mali deo ove svetlosti,

and the depth of this transit reflects the size of the object itself.

a dubina ovog tranzita odražava veličinu samog objekta.

And so, for example, let's take Jupiter.

Pa uzmimo, na primer, Jupiter.

Planets don't get much bigger than Jupiter.

Planete obično nisu veće od Jupitera.

Jupiter will make a one percent drop in a star's brightness.

Jupiter će da uzrokuje pad u jačini svetlosti zvezde za jedan posto.

Earth, on the other hand, is 11 times smaller than Jupiter,

Zemlja, s druge strane, manja je od Jupitera 11 puta

and the signal is barely visible in the data.

i njen signal je jedva vidljiv u podacima.

So back to our mystery.

Vratimo se našoj zagoneci.

A few years ago, Planet Hunters were sifting through data looking for transits,

Pre nekoliko godina, Lovci na planete su pretresali podatke, tražeći tranzite

and they spotted a mysterious signal coming from the star KIC 8462852.

i uočili su tajanstveni signal koji je stizao sa zvezde KIC 8462852.

The observations in May of 2009 were the first they spotted,

Njihove opservacije iz maja 2009. su bile prva opažanja

and they started talking about this in the discussion forums.

i počeli da govore o ovome na forumima za diskusije.

They said and object like Jupiter

Rakli su da bi objekat nalik Jupiteru

would make a drop like this in the star's light,

uzrokovao ovakav pad u svetlosti zvezde,

but they were also saying it was giant.

ali su takođe govorili da se radi o džinu.

You see, transits normally only last for a few hours,

Vidite, tranziti obično traju svega nekoliko sati,

and this one lasted for almost a week.

a ovaj je trajao skoro nedelju dana.

They were also saying that it looks asymmetric,

Takođe su govorili da izgleda asimetrično,

meaning that instead of the clean, U-shaped dip that we saw with Jupiter,

u smislu da umesto jasnog pada u obliku slova U, kao kod Jupitera,

it had this strange slope that you can see on the left side.

imao je čudan nagib koji vidite s leva.

This seemed to indicate

Ovo kao da je nagoveštavalo

that whatever was getting in the way and blocking the starlight

da šta god da se preprečilo i blokira zvezdanu svetlost

was not circular like a planet.

nije kružnog oblika poput planete.

There are few more dips that happened,

Još se nekoliko padova dogodilo,

but for a couple of years, it was pretty quiet.

ali je nekoliko godina bilo prilično tiho.

And then in March of 2011, we see this.

A onda smo u martu 2011. videli ovo.

The star's light drops by a whole 15 percent,

Svetlost zvezde pada za čitavih 15 procenata,

and this is huge compared to a planet,

a to je ogromno, u poređenju s planetom,

which would only make a one percent drop.

koja bi napravila pad od svega 1%.

We described this feature as both smooth and clean.

Opisali smo ovu odliku istovremeno glatkom i jasnom.

It also is asymmetric,

Takođe je asimetrična

having a gradual dimming that lasts almost a week,

i postepeno se pomračuje, a to traje skoro nedelju

and then it snaps right back up to normal in just a matter of days.

a potom se naglo vraća u normalu za svega nekoliko dana.

And again, after this, not much happens

A onda, nakon ovoga, nema mnogo dešavanja,

until February of 2013.

sve do februara 2013.

Things start to get really crazy.

Stvari postaju zaista nenormalne.

There is a huge complex of dips in the light curve that appear,

Nalazimo ogroman kompleks padova na svetlosnoj krivoj

and they last for like a hundred days,

i traju oko stotinu dana,

all the way up into the Kepler mission's end.

skroz do kraja Keplerove misije.

These dips have variable shapes.

Ovi padovi imaju razne oblike.

Some are very sharp, and some are broad,

Neki su veoma oštri, a neki su široki

and they also have variable durations.

i trajanje im takođe varira.

Some last just for a day or two, and some for more than a week.

Neki traju svega dan ili dva, a neki više od nedelju dana.

And there's also up and down trends within some of these dips,

I takođe imamo trendove rasta i pada unutar ovih padova,

almost like several independent events were superimposed on top of each other.

skoro kao da se radi o nekoliko nezavisnih događaja nadređenih jedan drugom.

And at this time, this star drops in its brightness over 20 percent.

A ovog puta, svetlost ove zvezde pada za preko 20 procenata.

This means that whatever is blocking its light

Što znači da šta god blokira svetlost,

has an area of over 1,000 times the area of our planet Earth.

ima površinu veću za 1,000 puta od površine naše planete Zemlje.

This is truly remarkable.

Ovo je zaista neverovatno.

And so the citizen scientists, when they saw this,

Pa su građani naučnici, kad su videli ovo,

they notified the science team that they found something weird enough

obavestili ekipu naučnika da su otkrili nešto prilično čudno

that it might be worth following up.

što bi vredelo pratiti.

And so when the science team looked at it,

Pa kad je ekipa naučnika to pogledala,

we're like, "Yeah, there's probably just something wrong with the data."

bili smo u fazonu: "Da, mora da nešto nije u redu s podacima."

But we looked really, really, really hard,

Ali gledali smo veoma, veoma, veoma podrobno

and the data were good.

i podaci su bili dobri.

And so what was happening had to be astrophysical,

A ono što se dešavalo je moralo da bude astrofizičkog porekla,

meaning that something in space was getting in the way

u smislu da se nešto u svemiru preprečilo

and blocking starlight.

i blokira zvezdanu svetlost.

And so at this point,

Pa smo se u tom momentu

we set out to learn everything we could about the star

zaputili da naučimo sve što smo mogli o toj zvezdi,

to see if we could find any clues to what was going on.

ne bi li našli nagoveštaj toga šta se dešavalo.

And the citizen scientists who helped us in this discovery,

A građani naučnici koji su pomogli u otkrivanju ovoga,

they joined along for the ride

pridružili su se trci

watching science in action firsthand.

posmatrajući iz prve ruke nauku na delu.

First, somebody said, you know, what if this star was very young

Prvo je neko rekao, znate, šta ako se radi o veoma mladoj zvezdi

and it still had the cloud of material it was born from surrounding it.

koja još uvek ima oko sebe oblak materijala iz kojeg je nastala.

And then somebody else said,

A onda je neko drugi rekao,

well, what if the star had already formed planets,

šta ako je zvezda već oformila planete,

and two of these planets had collided,

a dve od tih planeta su se sudarile,

similar to the Earth-Moon forming event.

poput teorije o nastanku Zemlje i Meseca.

Well, both of these theories could explain part of the data,

Pa, obe ove teorije su mogle da objasne deo podataka,

but the difficulties were that the star showed no signs of being young,

ali problem je bio u tome što zvezda nije pokazivala znakove mladosti

and there was no glow from any of the material

i nije bilo odsjaja bilo kog drugog materijala

that was heated up by the star's light,

koga zagreva svetlost zvezde,

and you would expect this if the star was young

a to biste očekivali kod mlade zvezde

or if there was a collision and a lot of dust was produced.

ili kad bi se desio sudar koji bi proizveo mnogo prašine.

And so somebody else said,

Pa je neko drugi rekao,

well, how about a huge swarm of comets

šta ako se radi o ogromnom jatu kometa

that are passing by this star in a very elliptical orbit?

koje prolaze pored ove zvezde krajnje eliptičnom orbitom?

Well, it ends up that this is actually consistent with our observations.

Pa, završilo se time što je ovo bilo zapravo u skladu s našim opservacijama.

But I agree, it does feel a little contrived.

Ali slažem se da zvuči malo neprirodno.

You see, it would take hundreds of comets

Vidite, trebalo bi vam na stotine kometa

to reproduce what we're observing.

da bi stvorile ono što smo gledali.

And these are only the comets

A radilo bi se samo o kometama

that happen to pass between us and the star.

koje slučajno prolaze između nas i zvezde.

And so in reality, we're talking thousands to tens of thousands of comets.

Stoga smo u principu govorili o na hiljadu do na desetine hljada kometa.

But of all the bad ideas we had,

Ali od svih loših ideja koje smo imali,

this one was the best.

ova je bila najbolja.

And so we went ahead and published our findings.

Pa smo objavili naša otkrića.

Now, let me tell you, this was one of the hardest papers I ever wrote.

Sad, dozvolite da vam kažem, da se radi o najtežem radu koji sam ikad napisala.

Scientists are meant to publish results,

Naučnici bi trebalo da objavljuju rezultate,

and this situation was far from that.

a ova situacija je bila daleko od toga.

And so we decided to give it a catchy title,

Pa smo odlučili da ga naslovimo privlačno

and we called it: "Where's The Flux?"

i naslovili smo ga: "Where's The Flux?"

I will let you work out the acronym.

Prepustiću vam da shvatite akronim.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

So this isn't the end of the story.

No ovo nije kraj priče.

Around the same time I was writing this paper,

Otprilike istovremeno dok sam pisala ovaj rad,

I met with a colleague of mine, Jason Wright,

srela sam se s kolegom Džejsonom Rajtom,

and he was also writing a paper on Kepler data.

i on je pisao rad o Keplerovim podacima.

And he was saying that with Kepler's extreme precision,

Rekao je da bi Kepler svojom izuzetnom preciznošću,

it could actually detect alien megastructures around stars,

vremenom zapravo otkrio vanzemaljske megastrukture blizu zvezda,

but it didn't.

ali to se nije desilo.

And then I showed him this weird data that our citizen scientists had found,

Ja sam mu onda pokazala ove čudne podatke koje su naši građani naučnici otkrili,

and he said to me,

a on mi je rekao:

"Aw crap, Tabby.

"Joj, dovraga, Tabi.

Now I have to rewrite my paper."

Sad moram da preformulišem rad."

So yes, the natural explanations were weak,

Dakle, da, prirodna objašnjenja su bila slaba

and we were curious now.

i sad smo bili znatiželjni.

So we had to find a way to rule out aliens.

Pa smo morali da otkrijemo način da isključimo vanzemaljce.

So together, we convinced a colleague of ours

Pa smo zajedno ubedili našeg kolegu

who works on SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,

koji radi na SETI-ju, Potrazi za vanzemaljskom inteligencijom,

that this would be an extraordinary target to pursue.

da bi ovo bilo izvanredno pratiti.

We wrote a proposal to observe the star

Poslali smo predlog da on posmatra zvezdu

with the world's largest radio telescope at the Green Bank Observatory.

najvećim radio-teleskopom na svetu na opservatoriji Grin Bank.

A couple months later,

Nekoliko meseci kasnije,

news of this proposal got leaked to the press

vesti o ponudi su procurele u štampi

and now there are thousands of articles,

i imali smo na hiljade članaka,

over 10,000 articles, on this star alone.

preko 10,000 članaka samo o ovoj zvezdi.

And if you search Google Images,

A ako potražite slike na Guglu,

this is what you'll find.

ovo ćete da pronađete.

Now, you may be wondering, OK, Tabby, well,

Sad, verovatno se pitate, u redu, Tabi, dobro

how do aliens actually explain this light curve?

kako su vanzemaljci objašnjenje za ovu svetlosnu krivu?

OK, well, imagine a civilization that's much more advanced than our own.

U redu, zamislite civilizaciju koja je daleko naprednija od naše.

In this hypothetical circumstance,

U ovim hipotetičkim okolnostima,

this civilization would have exhausted the energy supply of their home planet,

ova civilizacija je iscrpela zalihe energije svoje majke planete,

so where could they get more energy?

pa odakle bi mogli da dobiju dodatnu energiju?

Well, they have a host star just like we have a sun,

Pa, imaju zvezdu domaćina, baš kao što mi imamo sunce,

and so if they were able to capture more energy from this star,

pa ako su bili u stanju da zarobe dodatnu energiju ove zvezde,

then that would solve their energy needs.

onda bi to rešilo njihove energetske potrebe.

So they would go and build huge structures.

Pa bi sagradili ogromne strukture.

These giant megastructures,

Ove džinovske megastrukture,

like ginormous solar panels, are called Dyson spheres.

poput gigantskih solarnih panela, koji se zovu sferama Dajson.

This image above

Ovaj prizor gore

are lots of artists' impressions of Dyson spheres.

je utisak koji mnogi umetnici imaju o sferama Dajson.

It's really hard to provide perspective on the vastness of these things,

Zaista je teško pružiti perspektivu o ogromnosti ovih stvari,

but you can think of it this way.

no možete ovako da razmišljate o tome.

The Earth-Moon distance is a quarter of a million miles.

Razdaljina između Zemlje i Meseca iznosi 402 000 km.

The simplest element on one of these structures

Najprostiji element na jednoj od tih struktura

is 100 times that size.

je 100 puta veći od toga.

They're enormous.

Ogromne su.

And now imagine one of these structures in motion around a star.

A sad zamislite jednu od tih struktura kako se kreće oko zvezde.

You can see how it would produce anomalies in the data

Jasno vam je kako bi to uzrokovalo anomalije u podacima,

such as uneven, unnatural looking dips.

poput nejednakih, neprirodnih padova.

But it remains that even alien megastructures

Ali stoji da čak ni vanzemaljske megastrukture

cannot defy the laws of physics.

ne mogu da prkose zakonima fizike.

You see, anything that uses a lot of energy

Vidite, sve što koristi mnogo energije

is going to produce heat,

će da proizvodi toplotu,

and we don't observe this.

a to ne posmatramo.

But it could be something as simple

Ali možda se radi o nečem prostom

as they're just reradiating it away in another direction,

poput njenog preusmeravanja u drugom pravcu,

just not at Earth.

samo ne u Zemlju.

Another idea that's one of my personal favorites

Druga ideja, koja mi je omiljena,

is that we had just witnessed an interplanetary space battle

je da smo upravo posvedočili međuplanetarnoj svemirskoj bici

and the catastrophic destruction of a planet.

i katastrofalnom uništenju planete.

Now, I admit that this would produce a lot of dust

Sad, priznajem da bi ovo proizvelo mnogo prašine

that we don't observe.

koju nismo primetili.

But if we're already invoking aliens in this explanation,

Ali kad već u svom objašnjenju prizivamo vanzemaljce,

then who is to say they didn't efficiently clean up all this mess

onda ko kaže da nisu efikasno počistili sav taj nered

for recycling purposes?

u reciklažne svrhe?

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

You can see how this quickly captures your imagination.

Vidite koliko brzo vam ovo zaokuplja maštu.

Well, there you have it.

Pa, to je to.

We're in a situation that could unfold

U situaciji smo koja može da ispadne

to be a natural phenomenon we don't understand

prirodni fenomen koji ne razumemo

or an alien technology we don't understand.

ili vanzemaljska tehnologija koju ne razumemo.

Personally, as a scientist, my money is on the natural explanation.

Lično, kao naučnica, kladila bih se na prirodno objašnjenje.

But don't get me wrong, I do think it would be awesome to find aliens.

Ali, da se razumemo, bilo bi sjajno kad bismo otkrili vanzemaljce.

Either way, there is something new and really interesting to discover.

Kako god, ima da otkrijemo nešto novo i zanimljivo.

So what happens next?

Pa, šta će sada da se desi?

We need to continue to observe this star

Moramo da nastavimo s posmatranjem ove zvezde

to learn more about what's happening.

kako bismo saznali šta se dešava.

But professional astronomers, like me,

Ali profesionalni astronomi, poput mene,

we have limited resources for this kind of thing,

imaju ograničene resurse za ovakve stvari,

and Kepler is on to a different mission.

a Kepler je na potpuno drugoj misiji.

And I'm happy to say that once again,

I srećna sam što mogu da kažem da su opet

citizen scientists have come in and saved the day.

građani naučnici uleteli i spasili dan.

You see, this time,

Vidite, ovog puta

amateur astronomers with their backyard telescopes

su astronomi amateri sa teleskopima u dvorištima,

stepped up immediately and started observing this star nightly

prišli istog trena i počeli da posmatraju tu zvezdu po noći,

at their own facilities,

u sopstvenim domovima

and I am so excited to see what they find.

i ja sam uzbuđena njihovim otkrićima.

What's amazing to me is that this star would have never been found by computers

Meni je fascinantno to da ovu zvezdu kompjuteri nikad ne bi otkrili

because we just weren't looking for something like this.

jer prosto nismo tragali za nečim poput nje.

And what's more exciting

A još je uzbudljivije

is that there's more data to come.

da dodatni podaci tek stižu.

There are new missions that are coming up

Počinju nove misije

that are observing millions more stars

koje će da posmatraju još milione zvezda

all over the sky.

širom neba.

And just think: What will it mean when we find another star like this?

I samo pomislite: šta će da znači kad otkrijemo još jednu ovakvu zvezdu?

And what will it mean if we don't find another star like this?

A šta će da znači, ako ne otkrijemo još jednu ovakvu zvezdu?

Thank you.

Hvala vam.

(Applause)

(Aplauz)