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High-resolution Imaging Of The Radio Source Associated With Project Hephaistos Dyson Sphere Candidate G

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

astro-ph.GA

January 11, 2025

Filed under AGN, astro-ph.GA, astronomy, astrophysics, Dyson Sphere, Dyson Sphere candidate G, e-MERLIN, e-VLBI, EVN, Project Hephaistos, Radio astronomy, radio source, VLASS J233532.86-000424.9

High-resolution Imaging Of The Radio Source Associated With Project Hephaistos Dyson Sphere Candidate G — The WISE and VLASS-SE images of J2335-0004. The right panel is the VLASS-SE image. The FWHM and centroid derived from the VLASS-SE image are blue ellipses and dots in all five panels. The four left panels are W1, W2, W3, and W4 band images of the source. The green contours represent 10𝜎, 50𝜎 and 100𝜎 of the noise levels in WISE W1 and W2 images, 3𝜎 and 6𝜎 in W3 and W4 images, and −1𝜎, 10𝜎 and 80𝜎 in the VLASS-SE image. The candidate star’s location is shown as the red stars in all the panels. — astro-ph.GA

We present high-resolution e-MERLIN and EVN (e-VLBI) observations of a radio source associated with Dyson Sphere candidate G, identified as part of Project Hephaistos.

The radio source, VLASS J233532.86-000424.9, is resolved into 3 compact components and shows the typical characteristics of a radio-loud AGN. In particular, the EVN observations show that it has a brightness temperature in excess of 108~K. No radio emission is detected at the position of the M-dwarf star.

This result confirms our earlier hypothesis, that at least some of the Dyson Sphere candidates of project Hephaistos are contaminated by obscured, background AGN, lying close to the line of sight of otherwise normal galactic stars.

High-resolution radio observations of other Dyson Sphere candidates can be useful in distinguishing truly promising candidates from those contaminated by background sources.

Tongtian Ren, Michael A. Garrett, Andrew P. V. Siemion

Comments: 6 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables, Submitted to MNRAS Letters
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
Cite as: arXiv:2501.05152 [astro-ph.GA] (or arXiv:2501.05152v1 [astro-ph.GA] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2501.05152
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Submission history
From: Tongtian Ren
[v1] Thu, 9 Jan 2025 11:13:27 UTC (533 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.05152
Astrobiology,

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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