The Kepler Space Telescope looks for changes in the light emitted by some 150,000 stars. The idea is to detect shadows cast by orbiting objects.
One particular star in a system 1,400 light-years away showed an unusual pattern of dips in the light it emitted, suggesting a cluster of objects orbiting it. Last year, Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, suggested it could be a swarm of alien megastructures.
A computer model of an alien megastructure around a star. Kevin Gill/CC BY 2.0
