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Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

"there seem to me too many anomalies to explain all the vanished stars as known natural phenomena. In their current paper, the authors themselves discuss the possibility that they're seeing unknown phenomena, or that the vanished "stars" could be relics of technologically advanced civilizations, particularly the theoretical mega-engineering projects known as Dyson spheres."

What about the possibility that the inclusion of those stars in those 1950's star catalogs was a result of human error, instrument error, or scientific fraud?

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This is a comparison of images, not just catalogs of sources in images. If you look at the image in the linked article, you can easily spot one of the stars that has "gone missing".

Looking at the brightness of the source that went missing, it is hard to suggest instrumental error - much fainter stars remain detectable in both epochs.

And fraud, really? Who would bother to fake stars in catalogs and plates in the 1950s, and why?

So they could identify who plagiarized their catalogs?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry

Well you could, but why would you want to? Other than video games which didn’t exist in 1950, I can’t think of any reason someone would use a star catalogue in a for-profit scenario.

>it is hard to suggest instrumental error - much fainter stars remain detectable in both epochs.

I think if there is an instrumental error it would more plausibly be the opposite. That the bright stars are artifacts in the images.

Should be a relatively simple matter to cross-reference against other photographs (potentially from other observatories) to identify whether the same star appears multiple times.

Or included as copyright traps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street

Cartographers used to fight plagiarism with fictitious entries. Is it possible stellar cartographers did the same?

Cartographers get paid to make and sell unique branded maps, and they differentiate themselves by quality to make significant sales.

Stellar cartographers aren't selling unique branded star catalogs, so there is no reason to complain if someone has copied your data. The incentives are completely different.

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