SETI institute scientists have turned their radio telescopes to listen to a star that many hope might hold signs of intelligent alien life – but so far, no one is sending any signals our way.

A few weeks ago, the Kepler Space Telescope detected a star that was acting strange. The light from the star called KIC 8462852, which is about 1,500 light years away, doesn’t reach Earth consistently – it dips. And instead of dimming at regular intervals, which would indicate the passing of a planet that orbits the star, the light dips irregularly.

SETI institute scientists have turned their radio telescopes toward a star whose light dips. The Associated Press

Some scientists posited that this could be an indication of an alien civilization. But even those who presented this idea were skeptical of it.

The idea is that the irregular dimming of the star’s light might be from some kind of massive, alien-made structure – like the Dyson Sphere once dreamed up by physicist Freeman Dyson, which would theoretically surround a distant star to collect energy from it.

While a lot of the “alien megastructure” buzz was pure hype, scientists are interested in finding out what’s going on with this weird star.

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