We don’t know. Astronomers discovered an unusual behaviour from a star, many light years away, known as KIC 8462852. The light from the star was irregular and it indicated a possibility of an almighty source of energy, a virtually inexhaustible source of power(1) – a Dyson Sphere.
Disclaimer: I have no experience or background regarding the topic discussed in this blog. Please excuse any inaccuracies.
What is it?
A Dyson Sphere is a megastructure that wraps around an entire star and harnesses the power of the star as a source of immense amounts of energy. So much energy that we wouldn’t know what to do with it(2). It’s like a shell of solar collectors which collects solar energy from the sunlight that hits its surface. There are many variants for the way one of these megastructures could look like including a sphere, ring and a swarm. Before we venture off, we gotta know the origin!
A Brief History
The idea of such celestial structures was originally mentioned by Olaf Stapledon in 1937 in a science fiction novel called ‘Star Maker‘. It was later adapted by Freeman Dyson who apparently read it and used it as an inspiration. He then expanded on the idea in 1960. It became popular.
It was suggested as a way of supplying for the increasing energy needs of an advanced civilisation; as the energy demands grow, these structures could be a way of supplying for such energy. Additionally, Dyson suggested that these structures could, in fact, be used to detect extraterrestrial species through infrared radiation even from the Earth. Maybe you can finally meet your ET!
The KIC 8462852
As mentioned at the beginning of this blog, we don’t know whether there is an extraterrestrial race out there, however, just like anything in science, it’s a probability. NASA’s Kepler space telescope is being operated to closely observe KIC 8462852 which is more than 1400 light years away. The theory that led to the possible conclusion of a Dyson swarm is the fact that the star occasionally dims down to 20%. This could, therefore, mean that there’s something orbiting the star. As the concept of a Dyson sphere is to use solar panels around a star, the objects surrounding KIC 8462852 could be the solar panels of a Dyson swarm. As a result of all of these possibilities, scientists believe there’s a possibility that an extraterrestrial race is controlling the Dyson sphere. Investigations are still underway and nothing is concluded as of yet.
Variants and Designs
At this point, I know that you’re probably thinking that you’ve had enough of science fiction thrown at you. It’s about to get worse…(sorry)
One of the variants of a Dyson sphere is a ring. It’s, as the name suggests, a ring of solar panels around the star. This would be a swarm of solar panels that create an orbit around the target star. At a single orbit level, Dyson believes a Dyson ring structure would be the ideal megastructure for an advanced civilisation. The drawback of a swarm is that as the number of rings increase, the orbits vary and the whole situation gets out of hand.
Another variant is the Dyson shell which is a complete enclosure of a star. This would, of course, generate almost 100% energy; it’s very resource demanding. For a planet like ours, it would require every object in the solar system except the sun to be dismantled and rebuilt into the sphere(3). Additionally, as it’s a complete coat, it would collapse due to the forces of gravity and most likely be absorbed by the star. This makes it the least probable of the variants.
Can we harvest one?
Before you get excited, the reality is that it’s science fiction and is insanely difficult to harvest one. Literally, it’s coating an entire star!
You need lots of material. So much, that, provided steel has 1% carbon content and therefore 99% iron content, and presuming 80% of the Earth’s core is iron, we would need 23 Earth cores to supply the iron just to make the frame for one Dyson Sphere(4).
All of that is a brain-full to absorb. Alike any topic in science, there’s always something captivating and truly amazing about how things just piece together. Dyson spheres are no exception to this pattern, although, at this point, nothing is concluded. Perhaps you can look into this and let me know in the comments. Good luck with finding your ET!
References:
1 = Star Trek(TV show)
2 = NASA’s Unexplained Files(Documentary clip)
3 = Space Answers(Blog article)
4 = Zepherus Explanation(Youtube clip)
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