Nasa may have solved the 'alien superstructure' mystery

A strange star causing mysterious light patterns had scientists suggesting potential signs of alien life last month.

One even called the bizarre "swarm of megastructures" a potential alien civilisation.

NASA have been monitoring the star, called KIC 8462852 (catchy!), to find out what's really going on.

According to their findings, the star's visuals are most likely caused by... a family of comets.

But lead on the study Massimo Marengo isn't ruling out other explanations.

"We may not know yet what's going on around this star," Marengo says.

"But that's what makes it so interesting."

Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University said at the time it was identified: "Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build."

Meanwhile, Tabetha Boyajian, a researcher at Yale said: "We'd never seen anything like this star."

People took to social media to discuss whether there were really aliens out there.

@andyphatstaxx tweets: "scientists mayve discovered an alien superstructure surrounding a star and youre worried about eating too much bacon"

@selzero tweets: "Inhabitants of Earth breath a sigh of relief as "Alien Superstructure" turns out to be just another Starbucks"

The comets are believed to be travelling around the star in a 'long, eccentric orbit' and blocking the light once they pass in front.

NASA reports that although researchers have been using infrared light to spot heat movement around the star, the comets are most likely not visible at this moment in time.

Scientific American reports that the mysterious star may never have been found if it wasn't for volunteer citizen scientists pointing it out.

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