'[It’s] essentially any artificial structure built by an intelligent civilization perhaps for energy harvesting purposes.'
The method that Cody and her colleagues employ to try and find these megastructures is actually straightforward — and it's one scientists have widely used to discover exoplanets and other celestial bodies for decades.
"We look at thousands — even millions — of stars, take image after image, then we translate those images into a sequence of each star’s brightness over time," Cody explained. Every time an object like a planet passes by that star, it dims and creates a light signature. "If you have an artificial megastructure, you could potentially cause a different signature that would be unique," she added.. Luckily, Cody says that if anythingcome out, researchers will be more than willing to inform the public — after rigorously verifying their findings, of course.. "We want the public to see that it’s a process. It's not just like you discover something instantly and there it is. You’ve got to follow-up and test all hypotheses.
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