trailrunnerlife

Yes! Despite the technical issues, it also thought it was a great presentation. I have watched every SETI Institute video on YouTube, and that was one of the more ETI-centric presentations, very interesting!

Brilliant!

You are incorrect; the curve would not look like the one you suggested; if you read the paper/diagram more carefully you will notice that it represents the magnitude difference between a spherical transit and a triangle transit, NOT the actual shape of a triangular object's transit light curve.

http://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/wp-content/uploads/sites/9476/2015/10/8462852_q8.png I believe that this light curve from KIC 8462852 is approximately the light curve expected from an isosceles triangle, entering the field of view narrow end first. It is difficult to find published research on the specific light curves generated by various geometric shapes. The paper you reference is frustrating in that while it mentions various artificial transit shapes, it only shows the magnitude differences relative a transiting spherical body; however, it was probably the best treatment of the topic I have found so far (with the exception of the recent "The G Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations" (also by Wright, et al)

That's fantastic, I've been looking for something like that, thank you! Great blog @ astrowright, and the preprint of "The G Search" was one of the best treatments of the topic I've found, exceptional work - cheers! Hopefully you will be returning to the SETI Institute soon for another talk - and I can't wait to see where the follow-up data leads!