Recently, according to Live Science, the results of two scientific studies have been released that could, if verified, prove the existence of advanced alien civilizations elsewhere in the universe capable of building megastructures called Dyson spheres. Such a confirmation would be the most significant in the history of the world.
A Space.com story outlines how Freeman Dyson first postulated the concept of Dyson spheres, consisting of a spherical shell that would enclose a star. An alien civilization would live on the inside of the shell, harvesting the star’s light for energy. The energy resources and surface area for living space, for all practical purposes, would be unlimited. Dyson postulated that an alien civilization with advanced technology would dismantle a Jupiter-sized planet to construct the sphere.
A Dyson swarm is a variant of a Dyson sphere. According to RealClear Science, it “would be composed of living habitats, satellites and solar energy collectors orbiting like a net around a star. Energy would be transferred wirelessly between the individual components and the Earth. Alternatively, millions of mirrors could be used to focus light onto a fewer number of collectors.”
Dyson spheres, at least to this point, have only been the subject of science fiction, most notably the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “Relics”.
The two studies, one published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and the other by Cornell University, have discovered several Dyson sphere candidates, the first in seven solar systems, the latter in 53. Each study looked at past images of other solar systems taken by a variety of telescopes for indications of a Dyson sphere and the presence of infrared radiation. A Dyson sphere would emit that kind of radiation as the star heats the sphere’s interior.
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