Why isn't it thought to be a stellar ring? If a gas giant gets torn apart inside the Roche limit of a star, wouldn't you get something that looks a lot like that - for a few hundred years anyway? Sort of a naturally occurring 'smoke ring'?
A uniform ring would cause a constant rate of extinction, but it could be a lumpy ring, or 'arc' ring which is only partially complete. The curious thing is the lumpy, bumpy nature of the light-curve.
![[Image: 2DCC79EE00000578-3289812-Two_of_the_dips...529099.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/10/26/12/2DCC79EE00000578-3289812-Two_of_the_dips_on_day_1520_and_1570_pictured_in_the_KIC_8462852-a-21_1445862529099.jpg)
People, there are just a few hours left in the kickstarter campaign and we are almost there.
Come on...
Hm. Interesting, although I get the sense that the data is a bit preliminary at this point.
If it gained weight with more data, mining stars would certainly bake a lot of people's brains
Todd
If there are civilisations out there millions or billions of years old, I'd expect a few of them to try star-lifting - although I'm not convinced we'd recognise it easily.