Here is a graphic with more information.
Posted on 10/04/2012 9:46:47 PM PDT by LibWhacker
A team of astronomers is now looking for Dyson Spheres, massive star-scale solar power plants that extraterrestrial hunters hope alien civilizations employ
In 1960, mathematician, physicist, and all-around genius Freeman Dyson predicted that every civilization in the Universe eventually runs out of energy on its home planet, provided it survives long enough to do so. Dyson argued that this event constitutes a major hurdle in a civilization's evolution, and that all those who leap over it do so in precisely the same way: they build a massive collector of starlight, a shell of solar panels to surround their home star. Astronomers have taken to calling these theoretical megastructures Dyson Spheres. Dyson's insight may seem like nothing more than a thought experiment, but if his hypothesis is sound, it has a striking implication: if you want to find advanced alien civilizations, you should look for signs of Dyson Spheres.
Last month a trio of astronomers led by Penn State's Jason Wright began a two-year search for Dyson Spheres, a search that will span the Milky Way, along with millions of other galaxies. Their project was just awarded a sizable grant from the Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic organization that funds research on the "big questions" that face humanity, questions relating to "human purpose and ultimate reality."
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
You want to find aliens, look no further than Congress.
Hellfire !
I’ve got three of those !!
Now if only I could harness that energy......
The SETI project has been looking for signals from nearby stars that exhibit some non-random content that could be, for example, TV transmissions. The reruns of "I love Lgrzbyliy", "I dream of Jaxcryghie", "Grysbypwn's Island", and "Leave it to Bzaqqrytir" collected to date are apparently hilarious enough that they are keeping them to themselves so far.
If a civilization is building a Dyson Sphere, it doesn’t need to eject mass from planets. It will simply demolish them wholesale for the mass.
How to demolish a planet ?? Increase its’ spin rate until it starts coming apart. The means of doing so are left to the alert observer as an exercise. . .
The Dyson sphere would be built from the material of the solar wind, and would also be supported by the solar wind, and so would be very light, sort of like a huge soap bubble.
But the whole idea is stupid, what would they need that much energy for?
I read an article posted here a month or two ago saying that there was a huge scope or scope array planned or under construction in South America (Peru?). This instrument would be capable of resolving mountains on exoplanets.
Well, if you can push optical astronomy that far, why not look for artificial city lights on the night side?
Granted- you're limited to such planets as you can resolve optically, which is a tiny fraction of what's likely out there- but with capability expanding all the time...?
If humans were to build a Dyson sphere, we would use all the matter in the solar system, not just a little bit of the Earth. Except that in the Sun, of course. Jupiter alone is over 300x the mass of the Earth.
Besides astonishing physical manipulation capabilities, building such a thing would require the ability to transmute matter, changing it into other elements, and probably to manipulate matter on the nano scale in massive quantities.
Not presently known to exist material is strong enough to build into a Dyson sphere.
No presently known material is strong enough to build
Many modern radio transmission methods are purposely designed to appear as random noise. Unless a receiver knew the random sequence patterns in use they'd never know there was any intelligence to them.
Seems more practical to build your own miniature star and use it for energy than to try to build a shell around an existing star.
LOL. Whenever I see such depictions, my first recommendation is to visit some website that shows our solar system TRUE TO SCALE.
Be prepared to scroll a lot. And watch out you don’t miss the flyspeck that is planet earth. All the silly notions expressed in this thread will go right out the door, then. (It might also cause feelings of loneliness and insignificance - don’t worry, that’ll pass.)
The usual condensed models that look so tidy are an extreme disservice to the general public.
Please see my post #31. It applies here as well.
“I believe there is life out there but one thing that troubles me is why haven’t we picked up their version of survivor or dancing with the stars. Or have we............”
Perhaps human affairs ARE their version of the entertainments you cite. I recall a sci-fi short story titled “The Trouble With Bubbles.”
Yah, but you gotta be able to make a lot of scrith.
A single continuous object is not needed. Just a huge number of BIG solar collectors orbiting the star, transmitting the energy to where it is needed via microwave or laser.
I should have known it was a Philip K. Dick story:
“The Trouble With Bubbles” is a 1953 science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. The story is set in a future where mankind has attempted to reach other intelligent lifeforms through space exploration, and found nothing. In light of this yearning to connect with other lifeforms, people can buy a plastic bubble known as a Worldcraft, the tagline of which reads “Own Your Own World!”. The owner of the Worldcraft is able to create a whole universe, controlling all the variables inherent to its development. Within the universe, lifeforms just like humans exist....
It’s well worth a read...
You are quite right, of course. The amount of matter needed to produce such a sphere would be astonishing, even if we had the material manipulation and engineering capacity to do so.
Might have to go get stuff from other solar systems and bring it back, which of course leads to the obvious question of whether it probably wouldn’t be simpler to just terraform those other systems.
Not to mention safer. Even with a Dyson Sphere you’ve still got all your eggs in one (really big) basket.
Good point. Or perhaps this is all just an experiment by pandimentional mice to find the question that goes with the answer 42.
Just like dollars and Solyndra, the amount expended to create would never be offset by what you get back.
I think they found out that EM turns into background noise at around 5 LY distance from its origin point.
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