Sat Mar 23, 2024 11:33 pm by globalturbo
Massive Alien Megastructure Orbiting This Star – Dyson Sphere?
Although human beings have spent decades exploring space and searching for extraterrestrial life, science has not yet found conclusive evidence of the existence of beings from other worlds.
However, a recent discovery has baffled scientists for some years at the possibility of having found an artificial structure of colossal size in space… Have we finally found evidence that there are other intelligent beings in the Universe besides us?
Between 2010 and 2015, a group of scientists from Yale University, led by astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, studied the behavior of a star located at a distance of almost 1400 light-years.
Using the Kepler space telescope, the scientists observed that this star, which they named KIC 8462852 or Tabby’s star, behaved differently from the rest of the stars studied.
The original mission of the Kepler space telescope was to observe the dimming of stars caused by potentially habitable exoplanets orbiting around them.
When a round object such as an exoplanet comes between its star and a telescope, a regular dimming is observed in a part of the star, which is also equivalent to a drop in brightness of about 1%.
However, in the case of KIC 8462852, the dimming was very irregular, and the drop in brightness was extreme, specifically up to 22%, which is a lot for a small, round planet similar to Earth.
But what could be the reason for such behavior on this star?
The scientists considered several possible causes for these anomalies.
The first reasonable cause was a possible failure in the data collected or in the telescope itself. However, the scientists discarded this hypothesis a few days later.
Another possible explanation was that the star was surrounded by clouds of dust, the remains of comets, or that it could even be the remains of planets that collided with the star.
Most intriguing, however, was the suggestion made by Jason Wright, an astronomer at Penn State University, in an interview for The Atlantic:
The theory that any new unknown space phenomenon has to do with an alien civilization is an idea that quickly sticks to everyone’s imagination until scientists discard that possibility.
However, the theory of an alien megastructure might not be so far from reality after all.
This theory makes sense if we consider the probable existence of more technologically advanced civilizations somewhere in the Universe.
The idea is that as these civilizations become more advanced, they will need more energy to maintain their technology and lifestyle.
In order to meet this high energy demand, these aliens could place solar energy collectors around their main star, completing its orbit until the star is partially or totally covered, harnessing all of the energy it emits.
These hypothetical structures are called Dyson spheres, and if KIC 8462852 is being blocked by one of these megastructures, this could be the greatest discovery in history…
But what exactly is a Dyson sphere?
A Dyson sphere is a structure that covers the surface of a star at a distance to try to capture as much of its energy as possible.
The traditional design is that of a spherical shell whose radius is equal to that of a planetary orbit around a star like our sun.
In theory, a civilization with enough technological development could build one of these structures to cover its sun with several layers, one after the other, to capture not only part of the solar radiation in the form of photons but also the resulting infrared radiation in the form of heat.
So by covering much of the star and notably reducing its brightness, a Dyson sphere is a convenient way to search for advanced alien civilizations.
This certainly sounds like science fiction, and in fact, the first reference to such structures appears in Olaf Stapledon’s 1937 science fiction novel “Star Maker.”
Considering this, where does fiction end and science begin?
When the idea of searching for intelligent life outside of Earth began to develop in the 1960s, the mathematician and theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson proposed searching for Stapledon spheres in the Universe as a way of finding aliens.
Dyson had already published several theories in different magazines at the time, but the most interesting and realistic theory was that of the spheres.
In a scientific article titled “Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation,” Dyson raises the idea of looking for the radiation produced by these structures to increase the chances of finding evolved alien civilizations.
Thanks to this article, “Stapledon spheres” ended up being called “Dyson spheres.”
Although Freeman Dyson only proposed a single type of sphere formed by a kind of “swarm” of solar satellites orbiting around their star, some variants of the original idea emerged over time.
An example would be the Dyson bubble, a structure in which the solar platforms maintain a stable position thanks to the pressure of their star, each platform being independent of the rest.
Another type of sphere is the Dyson network, which links all the platforms through a system of cables. However, humans haven’t discovered any material capable of withstanding such stress without getting damaged.
Finally, there are inhabited Dyson spheres.
These structures could be part of a Dyson’s swarm and could be, for example, O’Neil cylinders, a kind of gigantic tube capable of generating gravity on its inner walls thanks to rotation, something similar to what we saw in the movie Elysium, starring Matt Damon.
The Kardashev Scale
Based on the idea of Dyson’s spheres, in 1964, the Soviet astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev developed a scale to classify civilizations based on their technological level and their ability to take advantage of the resources at their disposal.
Kardashev decided to classify civilizations at the planetary level into three basic types:
Text: Type I Civilization
This civilization is capable of taking advantage of all the energy resources of its planet, including fossil fuels as well as alternative energy sources such as nuclear, solar, and wind, but also energy from volcanoes, tides, and even earthquakes.
Text: Type II Civilization
A type II civilization would be able to take advantage of all the energy of its planet and its star; this is the type of civilization that would use Dyson spheres.
Text: Type III Civilization
A type III civilization has the ability to use all the resources of the galaxy it inhabits, which would also mean the possibility of traveling at high speed to colonize space on a galactic scale.
Subsequently, other scientists, following Kardashev’s work, proposed two types of civilizations that would be a natural evolution of types I, II, and III.
A Type IV civilization could harness all the energy of a galactic supercluster or even all the energy of the visible Universe, while a Type V could harness the energy of several universes, assuming there were other universes besides our own.
Can We Built a Dyson Sphere?
Now, based on these theories, the following question arises:
Is the creation of these structures really possible, either by aliens or even human beings?
While all of these civilizations are hypothetical, the Kardashev scale is used today by SETI scientists in their non-stop search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Even a study conducted in 2021 showed that humanity could reach the Type I level in the year 2347.
From an engineering point of view, it isn’t technically impossible to build such a megastructure around a star like our Sun.
However, scientists only consider feasible the idea of the Dyson swarm, that is, a structure based on a collection of huge solar panels orbiting and totally or partially covering their star.
In fact, Dyson himself made it quite clear in a letter sent to other scientists after publishing his 1960 paper, saying:
“A solid shell or ring surrounding a star is mechanically impossible. The form of ‘biosphere’ which I envisaged consists of a loose collection or swarm of objects traveling on independent orbits around the star.”
However, it’d be impossible for humanity to carry out such a project with the current state of our technology, in addition to the fact that we’d have to dismantle all the planets in our solar system to make such a megastructure around our Sun, and we would probably still need more resources.
However, a more technologically advanced civilization could achieve it…
Do Dyson Spheres Exist?
When scientist Jason Wright revealed to the public in 2015 that the extreme dimming of Tabby’s star was caused by an alien structure, Tabetha Boyajian saw the need to clarify the context in the face of the scientist’s claims.
The astronomer put all the cards on the table to explain the possible natural causes of the phenomenon and clarified that for scientists, aliens are always the last resource to explore and that she’d bet her money on natural phenomena.
In other words, the abnormal dimming of the star KIC 8462852 is most likely caused by debris orbiting the system around the star.
Does this mean that the chances of finding a Dyson sphere are zero?
Not necessarily.
Although scientists have been frustrated for decades trying to find Dyson spheres that prove the existence of other intelligent civilizations in the Universe, their efforts don’t stop.
The development of new methods and technologies is proposing new strategies to continue the search for extraterrestrial life.
For example, the launch at the end of 2021 of the James Webb Space Telescope will make it possible to more efficiently detect the heat emitted in the form of infrared light by hypothetical stellar megastructures.
But there is even the possibility of detecting physical changes in the star itself caused by the artificial structure, thus notably increasing our possibilities.
Even so, will we be able to find other forms of intelligent life one day?
In 1950, the Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi formulated the famous Fermi paradox, in which the scientist asks the following question:
“But where is everybody?”
Or in other words:
“If there are other lives out there, why haven’t we discovered them and haven’t they communicated with us?”
This question refers to the size of the Universe and the possibility of finding extraterrestrial life, in the face of the total absence of evidence for its existence.
Based on calculations made by Fermi himself, considering the age of our Universe, at least one extraterrestrial civilization should have visited us by now.
Some theories have tried to propose solutions to this lack of evidence, suggesting that the development of intelligent life is extremely rare in the Universe, or that these civilizations have a very short life cycle, and that other older civilizations could have become extinct before they had the possibility of contacting us…
In fact, a study conducted by a group of scientists from the Pennsylvania State University found that in a catalog of more than 100,000 nearby galaxies, there is no evidence of the existence of an advanced civilization.
On the other hand, there are some space phenomena that continue to baffle scientists, such as the “Bootes Void” or “Great Void,” a region of space discovered in the early 1980s that has a diameter of 250 million light-years and that only has about 60 galaxies near its center, 10,000 fewer galaxies than it should have…
The size of this supervoid is 10 times larger than modern physics admits, and some believe that it could be evidence of the existence of a Type III civilization on the Kardashev scale that would have already consumed all the galaxies in that region.
If so, why haven’t they tried to contact us?
Some say that they’re observing us, but that our technology is not yet advanced enough to be able to detect them.
Conclusion
Even with all the theories and evidence for and against, astrobiology doesn’t give up in its search for extraterrestrial life, especially since there is increasing evidence of the existence of potentially habitable planets around distant stars in space.
We must consider that if there are other forms of life in space besides ours, they may not be or behave as we imagine.
The failure of one theory doesn’t mean the failure of other theories, and the Universe is big enough to offer us an unlimited number of possibilities.
The exploration is just starting…
We hope you’ve found today’s video interesting.
What do you think about the existence of other forms of intelligent life in the Universe?
Do you think the construction of a megastructure like the Dyson sphere is possible?
https://youtu.be/4Psn3WPmRCQ
THANKS TO: https://universe-inside-you.com/dyson-sphere/
