Detecting Advanced Alien Civilizations (Dyson Spheres)
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Whilst I was perusing another article in the MSN info world (that another member had mentioned) I stumbled across the following article "Scientists have found 'evidence' of advanced alien civilisations". The article relates to a scientific study of a combination of star surveys (roughly 5 million stars) and a methodology to filter the stars looking for specific emission markers that make the star unusual and possibly a Dyson sphere under construction. In the article there is a link to the official paper that the group produced (haven't finished reading it yet). My own feelings are that Dyson spheres sound cool, but the amount of physical material that would go into making one would be prohibitive. Stars are big. Even red dwarf stars. Surrounding the star with technological material (all of the support devices to convert, control the flow of energy, store and forward it to the area of need). Would require the literal conversion of several star systems of every bit of matter in them (planets, moons, asteroids, every spec of material left over from the star formation) to provide the raw materials for the build. We might want to look for star systems surrounding a suspected Dyson sphere that have no planetary bodies associated with the star. Of course, an advanced civilization might be able to capture the solar wind and also convert a large part of the radiant energy directly to usable matter. In any case, here is the link. Have fun. MSN[^]
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Whilst I was perusing another article in the MSN info world (that another member had mentioned) I stumbled across the following article "Scientists have found 'evidence' of advanced alien civilisations". The article relates to a scientific study of a combination of star surveys (roughly 5 million stars) and a methodology to filter the stars looking for specific emission markers that make the star unusual and possibly a Dyson sphere under construction. In the article there is a link to the official paper that the group produced (haven't finished reading it yet). My own feelings are that Dyson spheres sound cool, but the amount of physical material that would go into making one would be prohibitive. Stars are big. Even red dwarf stars. Surrounding the star with technological material (all of the support devices to convert, control the flow of energy, store and forward it to the area of need). Would require the literal conversion of several star systems of every bit of matter in them (planets, moons, asteroids, every spec of material left over from the star formation) to provide the raw materials for the build. We might want to look for star systems surrounding a suspected Dyson sphere that have no planetary bodies associated with the star. Of course, an advanced civilization might be able to capture the solar wind and also convert a large part of the radiant energy directly to usable matter. In any case, here is the link. Have fun. MSN[^]
I suppose one way to do it is to cannibalize the other planets in the system. Like hit each planet with a giant spatula to flatten it.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Whilst I was perusing another article in the MSN info world (that another member had mentioned) I stumbled across the following article "Scientists have found 'evidence' of advanced alien civilisations". The article relates to a scientific study of a combination of star surveys (roughly 5 million stars) and a methodology to filter the stars looking for specific emission markers that make the star unusual and possibly a Dyson sphere under construction. In the article there is a link to the official paper that the group produced (haven't finished reading it yet). My own feelings are that Dyson spheres sound cool, but the amount of physical material that would go into making one would be prohibitive. Stars are big. Even red dwarf stars. Surrounding the star with technological material (all of the support devices to convert, control the flow of energy, store and forward it to the area of need). Would require the literal conversion of several star systems of every bit of matter in them (planets, moons, asteroids, every spec of material left over from the star formation) to provide the raw materials for the build. We might want to look for star systems surrounding a suspected Dyson sphere that have no planetary bodies associated with the star. Of course, an advanced civilization might be able to capture the solar wind and also convert a large part of the radiant energy directly to usable matter. In any case, here is the link. Have fun. MSN[^]
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Whilst I was perusing another article in the MSN info world (that another member had mentioned) I stumbled across the following article "Scientists have found 'evidence' of advanced alien civilisations". The article relates to a scientific study of a combination of star surveys (roughly 5 million stars) and a methodology to filter the stars looking for specific emission markers that make the star unusual and possibly a Dyson sphere under construction. In the article there is a link to the official paper that the group produced (haven't finished reading it yet). My own feelings are that Dyson spheres sound cool, but the amount of physical material that would go into making one would be prohibitive. Stars are big. Even red dwarf stars. Surrounding the star with technological material (all of the support devices to convert, control the flow of energy, store and forward it to the area of need). Would require the literal conversion of several star systems of every bit of matter in them (planets, moons, asteroids, every spec of material left over from the star formation) to provide the raw materials for the build. We might want to look for star systems surrounding a suspected Dyson sphere that have no planetary bodies associated with the star. Of course, an advanced civilization might be able to capture the solar wind and also convert a large part of the radiant energy directly to usable matter. In any case, here is the link. Have fun. MSN[^]
From the CP newsletter Astronomers are on the Hunt for Dyson Spheres - Universe Today[^]
Gary Stachelski 2021 wrote:
but the amount of physical material that would go into making one would be prohibitive
There are all sorts of engineering problems, economical problems, and political ones as well. Those are pretty standard constraints on all fantastical theoretical constructs. Even much smaller ones. Consider this - lets say one claims that the material in the solar system is enough. How do you dismantle Jupiter without destabilizing the entire star system. Or what political system must the world have in place such that it would remain stable enough for perhaps hundreds of thousands of years while this was happening. Those who want to believe often rely on yet more fantastical stuff to avoid such problems.
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Here's a question, how do you maintain gravity in a Dyson Sphere (assuming you do not have "artificial gravity")?
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
I would suggest spinning it. You'd wind up with only a ring world's amount of living space but (like 640kb) that should be enough for anyone. It would probably make for an interesting typography in that "down" might not be perpendicular to the surface, but hey, you've already solved the hard problem of making and spinning it. This is probably a minor issue, comparatively. On the plus side there's no need to worry about artificial gravity failures sending the atmosphere and other loose material, like people, into the sun. The "unused" sides, the axis poles as it were, could be for energy harvesting and such. They'd also make fairly good access points for ingress/egress of the sphere.
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Whilst I was perusing another article in the MSN info world (that another member had mentioned) I stumbled across the following article "Scientists have found 'evidence' of advanced alien civilisations". The article relates to a scientific study of a combination of star surveys (roughly 5 million stars) and a methodology to filter the stars looking for specific emission markers that make the star unusual and possibly a Dyson sphere under construction. In the article there is a link to the official paper that the group produced (haven't finished reading it yet). My own feelings are that Dyson spheres sound cool, but the amount of physical material that would go into making one would be prohibitive. Stars are big. Even red dwarf stars. Surrounding the star with technological material (all of the support devices to convert, control the flow of energy, store and forward it to the area of need). Would require the literal conversion of several star systems of every bit of matter in them (planets, moons, asteroids, every spec of material left over from the star formation) to provide the raw materials for the build. We might want to look for star systems surrounding a suspected Dyson sphere that have no planetary bodies associated with the star. Of course, an advanced civilization might be able to capture the solar wind and also convert a large part of the radiant energy directly to usable matter. In any case, here is the link. Have fun. MSN[^]
["Star Trek: The Next Generation" Relics (TV Episode 1992) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708764/)
In theory, theory and practice are the same. But in practice, they never are.” If it's not broken, fix it until it is. Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
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Whilst I was perusing another article in the MSN info world (that another member had mentioned) I stumbled across the following article "Scientists have found 'evidence' of advanced alien civilisations". The article relates to a scientific study of a combination of star surveys (roughly 5 million stars) and a methodology to filter the stars looking for specific emission markers that make the star unusual and possibly a Dyson sphere under construction. In the article there is a link to the official paper that the group produced (haven't finished reading it yet). My own feelings are that Dyson spheres sound cool, but the amount of physical material that would go into making one would be prohibitive. Stars are big. Even red dwarf stars. Surrounding the star with technological material (all of the support devices to convert, control the flow of energy, store and forward it to the area of need). Would require the literal conversion of several star systems of every bit of matter in them (planets, moons, asteroids, every spec of material left over from the star formation) to provide the raw materials for the build. We might want to look for star systems surrounding a suspected Dyson sphere that have no planetary bodies associated with the star. Of course, an advanced civilization might be able to capture the solar wind and also convert a large part of the radiant energy directly to usable matter. In any case, here is the link. Have fun. MSN[^]
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From the CP newsletter Astronomers are on the Hunt for Dyson Spheres - Universe Today[^]
Gary Stachelski 2021 wrote:
but the amount of physical material that would go into making one would be prohibitive
There are all sorts of engineering problems, economical problems, and political ones as well. Those are pretty standard constraints on all fantastical theoretical constructs. Even much smaller ones. Consider this - lets say one claims that the material in the solar system is enough. How do you dismantle Jupiter without destabilizing the entire star system. Or what political system must the world have in place such that it would remain stable enough for perhaps hundreds of thousands of years while this was happening. Those who want to believe often rely on yet more fantastical stuff to avoid such problems.
It's all really a question of perspective. If you were to ask people in the 1600's to build the Hoover dam it would be deemed impossible. The technology, cost and political problems from the 1600's would preclude the project. However, come 1931 and it was now possible. The same can be said for a Dyson Sphere project. The civilization that would tackle a project like that had outgrown the fusion reactor/alternative green power solutions and needed a larger source of power to continue to evolve their technological society. BTW: Dyson spheres do not need to be solid objects. They can be made of earth sized sections that are towed into an acceptable orbit around the sun. So they can be built incrementally over time. Giving the civilization access to increasing amounts of energy. They do not have to be living spaces (although they can be). They can simply capture, convert and transmit the energy to somewhere else. Using the sun as a big fusion reactor and like a power company, transmitting the power to where it is needed.
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Surely if you pointed a telescope at a star with a Dyson sphere then it would not be emitting any detectable radiation. Much like Dark Matter. Wait... so that is what dark matter is? :-)
The thought is that no technology is 100%. So if you stick solid objects in front of a star, those objects will heat up. There will be some waste heat radiating from the objects. You can detect that. In this case, the scientists were trying to be clever in trying to detect not a completed Dyson sphere but one that is still being built. That way they would be able to observe the star, note it's type, and predict the amount of light it should be emitting. If it was emitting less light and had a spike in the mid-infrared range. That might hint that a Dyson sphere was under construction. They also thought of many other conditions that would rule out stars for natural causes for the odd radiation being emitted by the stars. They started with a group of star surveys of stars within 300 parsecs of Earth, which totaled about 5 million stars and whittled it down to 7 stars that were odd and potential candidates. They are trying to get observation time to try and confirm or reject these 7 stars.
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It's all really a question of perspective. If you were to ask people in the 1600's to build the Hoover dam it would be deemed impossible. The technology, cost and political problems from the 1600's would preclude the project. However, come 1931 and it was now possible. The same can be said for a Dyson Sphere project. The civilization that would tackle a project like that had outgrown the fusion reactor/alternative green power solutions and needed a larger source of power to continue to evolve their technological society. BTW: Dyson spheres do not need to be solid objects. They can be made of earth sized sections that are towed into an acceptable orbit around the sun. So they can be built incrementally over time. Giving the civilization access to increasing amounts of energy. They do not have to be living spaces (although they can be). They can simply capture, convert and transmit the energy to somewhere else. Using the sun as a big fusion reactor and like a power company, transmitting the power to where it is needed.
Gary Stachelski 2021 wrote:
If you were to ask people in the 1600's to build the Hoover dam it would be deemed impossible.
The universe is not in fact infinite. There are very real limits. And scaling up known systems is not the same as claiming unknown systems (dams existed long before then.)
Gary Stachelski 2021 wrote:
They can be made of earth sized sections that are towed into an acceptable orbit around the sun. So they can be built incrementally over time.
Ignoring the engineering, economical and political points that I already stated. What are the exact engines would they use? How would they pay for the fuel? Who would pay for the fuel? Based on your claim then it should be easy for you to find a scaled up version that was built now, which is comparable to that which was only built in the 1600s. For example the Lake Homs Dam is one mile long and 23 ft high and built in the 1300s. Hoover is 726 ft tall and 1200 ft long. Thus by your scaling someone should now be building a dam that is 20 times as tall as Hoover. But it just doesn't happen because there are real problems with scaling like that. Tall buildings are a very good example of that. People would love to build a building that was 1 mile high (or 10,000 meters.) They are even willing to pay for it. But there are real engineering and physical reasons that buildings are not a mile high or even higher. There are also real practical issues with even populating a building even that is much shorter. Then are safety issues such as those from earthquakes and fires.
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Gary Stachelski 2021 wrote:
If you were to ask people in the 1600's to build the Hoover dam it would be deemed impossible.
The universe is not in fact infinite. There are very real limits. And scaling up known systems is not the same as claiming unknown systems (dams existed long before then.)
Gary Stachelski 2021 wrote:
They can be made of earth sized sections that are towed into an acceptable orbit around the sun. So they can be built incrementally over time.
Ignoring the engineering, economical and political points that I already stated. What are the exact engines would they use? How would they pay for the fuel? Who would pay for the fuel? Based on your claim then it should be easy for you to find a scaled up version that was built now, which is comparable to that which was only built in the 1600s. For example the Lake Homs Dam is one mile long and 23 ft high and built in the 1300s. Hoover is 726 ft tall and 1200 ft long. Thus by your scaling someone should now be building a dam that is 20 times as tall as Hoover. But it just doesn't happen because there are real problems with scaling like that. Tall buildings are a very good example of that. People would love to build a building that was 1 mile high (or 10,000 meters.) They are even willing to pay for it. But there are real engineering and physical reasons that buildings are not a mile high or even higher. There are also real practical issues with even populating a building even that is much shorter. Then are safety issues such as those from earthquakes and fires.
jschell wrote:
The universe is not in fact infinite. There are very real limits. And scaling up known systems is not the same as claiming unknown systems (dams existed long before then.)
I apologize, I was not clear in my clumsy attempt to make a point. I was not dissing what you had said about the engineering, economic and political climate for large projects. I was not suggesting that scaling up the a dam from an earlier time (even 1300, and the Romans were superb engineers) was equivalent to building a Dyson sphere to harvest the energy of the local sun. Let me try another equally clumsy attempt to get my point across (please do not take offense). Today we are in 2024. Lets roll the clock back 1,000 years to 1024. Given the engineering, technological, economic and political climate of 1024. Would it be possible for an engineer to design and construct a cell phone? My answer would be no. There were huge gaps in knowledge, supporting Infrastructure, etc. However, in just 1000 years it is now possible for billions of people to communicate using one. Does this mean we have the knowledge and supporting infrastructure to build a Dyson sphere. Of course not. However, in another 1000 years (if we don't kill ourselves) we might have some better ideas.
jschell wrote:
What are the exact engines would they use? How would they pay for the fuel? Who would pay for the fuel?
I have no clue what technology a civilization that is 10,000 years (or 100,000 years?) more advanced than ours would use to travel around interstellar space or how to fuel it. No more than a person from 1024 could imagine how to fuel a jet for travel between continents. (yes, yes I know the argument of the great filter, no technological civilization survives for long since it's technological advancements eventually kill it off. But I am optimistic that maybe an alien one might not fall into that trap). All I am saying is that it would be hubris to think that as of today, we know everything about how the universe works. We certainly do not know how to build a Dyson sphere. Or if it is even practical to do so. In any case, Back in 1960 Freedman Dyson wrote a formal paper ("Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infra-Red Radiation") on a simple thought experiment which was not aimed at the details of building a Dyson sphere but given one was built, was it possible for us to detect it. Pretty cool a
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jschell wrote:
The universe is not in fact infinite. There are very real limits. And scaling up known systems is not the same as claiming unknown systems (dams existed long before then.)
I apologize, I was not clear in my clumsy attempt to make a point. I was not dissing what you had said about the engineering, economic and political climate for large projects. I was not suggesting that scaling up the a dam from an earlier time (even 1300, and the Romans were superb engineers) was equivalent to building a Dyson sphere to harvest the energy of the local sun. Let me try another equally clumsy attempt to get my point across (please do not take offense). Today we are in 2024. Lets roll the clock back 1,000 years to 1024. Given the engineering, technological, economic and political climate of 1024. Would it be possible for an engineer to design and construct a cell phone? My answer would be no. There were huge gaps in knowledge, supporting Infrastructure, etc. However, in just 1000 years it is now possible for billions of people to communicate using one. Does this mean we have the knowledge and supporting infrastructure to build a Dyson sphere. Of course not. However, in another 1000 years (if we don't kill ourselves) we might have some better ideas.
jschell wrote:
What are the exact engines would they use? How would they pay for the fuel? Who would pay for the fuel?
I have no clue what technology a civilization that is 10,000 years (or 100,000 years?) more advanced than ours would use to travel around interstellar space or how to fuel it. No more than a person from 1024 could imagine how to fuel a jet for travel between continents. (yes, yes I know the argument of the great filter, no technological civilization survives for long since it's technological advancements eventually kill it off. But I am optimistic that maybe an alien one might not fall into that trap). All I am saying is that it would be hubris to think that as of today, we know everything about how the universe works. We certainly do not know how to build a Dyson sphere. Or if it is even practical to do so. In any case, Back in 1960 Freedman Dyson wrote a formal paper ("Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infra-Red Radiation") on a simple thought experiment which was not aimed at the details of building a Dyson sphere but given one was built, was it possible for us to detect it. Pretty cool a
Gary Stachelski 2021 wrote:
However, in another 1000 years (if we don't kill ourselves) we might have some better ideas.
That is exactly how I read your reply. We already know enough to posit how to construct large projects. So we can certainly make reasonable assumptions about what large scale project would involve. And I gave you an example - very tall buildings. With those it is not a matter of will. People want them. People are willing to pay for them. The engineering says it cannot be done. It can only be done if fantastical technologies somehow come into existence. Technologies that have no current basis. One thousand years ago there was a basis for larger projects. And they used that to build large projects. So claims of 'what will the future bring' do not provide a basis for that.
Gary Stachelski 2021 wrote:
how to fuel a jet for travel between continents.
The first glider was in 1793. The first balloon (with people) was in 1783. The water wheel was invented before recorded history. The first recorded powered engine was in 1 CE. The first wind powered electrical generator was in in 1887.
Gary Stachelski 2021 wrote:
All I am saying is that it would be hubris to think that as of today, we know everything about how the universe works
We do however know a great deal about how the universe works at the macro scale. And a Dyson sphere is definitely macro.
