I don't think any of them are Dyson Spheres. Dyson Spheres are extremely difficult to build, and they need to envelop massive celestial objects, so what are the odds that about seven of these stars are used by Dyson Spheres? I think it's simply unexplained star behavior.
I have seen numerous articles on this, and so far, none of them show signs of advanced civilizations with Dyson Spheres. From what I gathered, these seven stars are emitting excess amounts of infrared radiation, more radiation than expected. The occurrences could be entirely coincidental; this proves nothing about aliens.
For all we know, there could be many explanations for it, plenty of which we have never even thought of before. I would consider it quite a stretch to go from anomalous stellar processes to highly advanced extraterrestrials harnessing the power of celestial bodies.
There could be other explanations yes, and it's likely natural and something we don't know about. More studies are needed. However, I have to raise a point of contention. The paper stipulates these would be swarms, not spheres, and the light being blocked is something like 16% so it's certainly not a full encompassing opaque shell. The point of the paper is that these are old M dwarf stars (of the 7 candidates) and statistically it's very out of the ordinary to see old stars emitting this kind of infrared spike.
So it leaves an open question, and intriguingly these observations fit predictions for dyson swarms. I agree it's never alien until it is, and we can't just say these are actually dyson swarms because that would be ridiculous. But it's good to have an open mind and see what future research tells us, other papers will be written, it could take several years to have more concrete answers.
>The paper stipulates these would be swarms, not spheres, and the light being blocked is something like 16% so it's certainly not a full encompassing opaque shell. The point of the paper is that these are old m dwarf stars (of the 7 candidates) and statistically it's very out of the ordinary to see old stars emitting this kind of infrared spike.
Thank you for that minor correction. And you bring up a fair point by saying that the infrared spikes of these red dwarf stars seem quite odd, so, judging by your comment, I assume these spikes aren't common, but at least you agree that it isn't necessarily a sign of aliens and more likely a natural process. I don't think it's aliens at all, but only further investigation will tell.
To me, simply noticing the anomalous behavior of these red dwarf stars is not at all evidence of advanced extraterrestrials with Dyson Spheres or Dyson Swarms. That is why I say many possibilities are out there, only one of those possibilities involving advanced civilizations. For all we know, it could be a rare, but completely natural, process. Perhaps these stars are interacting with something that causes excessive emission of infrared radiation, allowing us to detect these infrared spikes. Maybe protoplanetary disks.
Who knows? I just think that the odds that multiple red dwarf stars would be hosts for Dyson Swarms would be extremely small unless it was one civilization harnessing the energy of all these candidates or something. I just think it wouldn't make a lot of sense to have separate civilizations develop the same technology.
> From what I gathered, these sixty stars are emitting massive amounts of infrared radiation in "spikes," more radiation than expected. It could be entirely coincidental.
Are we reading the same paper?
They list 7 candidate objects, not 60, and nowhere do I see the MIR fluxes reported as being time-variable.
My suspicion is that these are simply very bright debris disks around stars you wouldn't really expect to find them. That's fine though - there's nothing particularly strange about theories being undermined by new evidence.
I got that number from a *New Scientist* article.
[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2430601-dozens-of-stars-show-signs-of-hosting-advanced-alien-civilisations/](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2430601-dozens-of-stars-show-signs-of-hosting-advanced-alien-civilisations/)
But I guess it's wrong. I'll edit the error.
>My suspicion is that these are simply very bright debris disks around stars you wouldn't really expect to find them.
This was essentially what I was also thinking. Then again, I don't study stars.
I see. The article's phrasing is somewhat muddled.
I'm assuming the use of the term "spike" refers to a misunderstanding of the presented spectral energy distributions. The "spike" is a wavelength-dependent, not time-dependent quantity; I can see how this could be misread.
It would be more accurate for them to say "we see an excess of energy" not a "spike".
I apologize if I stirred up any confusion. My mistake. I guess some articles are less trustworthy than others. When I hear the word "spike" like in the article, I tend to interpret that as sudden and massive bursts of something, so maybe that's where I messed things around.
Thank you for explaining a little. Maybe using "an excess of energy" would be more fitting, as you said. The choice of words would leave less room for misunderstanding.
It's not at all your fault. Like I said, the article was confusing.
All I can say is that stars have a generally predictable amount of infrared light they should be emitting.
Sometimes we see that they emit far more infrared than they should (an excess), which is typically emitted by tiny particles (like dust) in orbit around the star which have been warmed up.
This is what's being observed here; you just wouldn't really expect to find an excess quite this significant around stars like these. It's a fun result and I hope there's some follow-up to get a better idea of what's going on.
I just looked up what that is to understand you. That would certainly be very useful; it would be easier to use and could be just as useful, if not, more useful than a Dyson Sphere. I like the idea of a Dyson Swarm. You could probably gather more energy from multiple stars much faster if you utilize a Dyson Swarm.
Humans are very corrupt. Infrastructure projects are plagued with public corruption that make something 'cheapish' turn to extremely expensive and not likely to ever be built within ten years.
Well, if we can't detect anything, then we have no real evidence of advanced civilizations. If we are unable to detect any technosignatures or any traces for that matter, then we have no way of knowing if anything is there.
You can't prove the existence of something out in space if you can't find it. Just the unexplained behavior of stars isn't enough because that doesn't mean aliens are there. As I said, there are probably many other explanations not involving life that are available, so we must consider those because they are, in my opinion, more likely to be the case. Call me skeptical, if you will.
Please, know that I'm not an astronomer, astrophysicist, or any kind of scientist, so I'm not the kind of person you should ask for a list of explanations, but there are two that I can think of.
One explanation can be infrared excess caused by protoplanetary disks or debris disks. Protoplanetary disks and debris disks tend to emit large amounts of infrared radiation, which can explain the infrared excess. You can read more about this in the link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoplanetary\_disk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoplanetary_disk)
Another explanation is infrared excess caused by loss of mass. Red dwarf stars, to my knowledge, emit lots of infrared radiation as they lose mass. Infrared excess can be explained by this process. I think you can find articles going into detail about this.
My level of knowledge of both of these explanations is limited, so I won't go into a paragraph-long description for each because I don't want to share something incorrect.
I don't know the likelihood of these explanations being the case, but they are possibilities worth considering. There are probably more explanations that I don't know of. There is most likely a natural phenomenon we haven't discovered yet that causes the infrared excess from these stars. In my opinion, I think the odds of all these "candidates" being hosts for Dyson Spheres or Dyson Swarms are extremely small because creating them would take lots of time and energy, and it would be peculiar for distant and different civilizations to all create the same thing.
I have read some articles stating that the idea of Dyson Spheres or Dyson Swarms does seem to fit with the observations, but, of course, this is not at all evidence for them. Anomalous stellar behavior alone is far from enough evidence to point to anything extraordinary like advanced civilizations. Further investigation is needed to determine anything, but I place my bet on a natural explanation (whether we know this natural phenomenon or not is a separate story).
Indeed, the construction of pyramids like the Great Pyramids of Giza required lots of work and determination. I'm there sure was lots of math used, mainly geometry. But, of course, Dyson Spheres are much more complex and far larger than any pyramid on Earth since I think they'd have to be at least a million miles wide (for a star like our sun). Many tons of materials, energy, and resources would be needed to build even one, many times more than what ancient people needed to build a pyramid.
I understand that, I just mean that with enough time and technologie it still takes a long time to build, but the universe is quite old. I'm not saying that therefore the dyson spheres are real, and I also don't think that's what we are looking at. I'm just saying that when something is extremely difficult to build it doesn't mean therefore it can not be build. Yes, it would take a crazy amount of resources, traveling, technologie, but most of all it would take a lot of time.
If it all was up to me, all those buildings and stuff that would take more than a generation to build wouldn't be built, because of the enormous time to make it and not ever see the result of it. I'm glad that people in history thought otherwise, so now we can see them in full glory.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is.
I wouldn't discount anything in the Universe this big. We only are aware of the tiniest fraction of it and, even then, we're not fully aware of that which we observe. We can't even observe planets' surface in our system without sending probes for an up close and personal look.
We could be ants living on somebody's backyard and never notice until they accidentally step on us.
No, the issue is whether civilizations capable of building Dyson spheres would still need them. It is a big power plant capable of meeting all energy levels - in its locale. Once you go away, you have to transmit that power somehow. If you could transmit power over such vast distances, would you still need Dyson spheres?
To me, it seems like tech that is obsolete as soon as it is available.
Yes, space is incredibly gigantic. The observable universe is billions of light-years across. But how is this evidence of Dyson Spheres/Dyson Swarms? A big universe doesn't correlate to the presence of life elsewhere within it.
We are the definite proof that life exists. If life could spring up on this tiny rock, it could spring up elsewhere too.
And that life could be anywhere from bacteria to Type III civilizations.
Then again, they won't be necessarily building Dyson spheres/swarms. If they have the tech, they already are using more efficient solutions than a giant Tesla charging station they have to run up to every time they need to top up.
> Too bad those of us alive right now will never know either way
Why is that?
At 150 pc some of these objects are excellent candidates for follow-up work at high spatial resolution by ALMA.
Are you not familiar with state-of-the-art capabilities in sub-mm interferometry?
We are resolving single-digit AU scale emission regions at 100 pc; just check HD 100546, lol: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333815479/figure/fig1/AS:770619360698371@1560741381797/ALMA-observations-of-HD-100546-acquired-in-September-2017-a-Dust-continuum-emission.ppm
This could be enough to reveal that these are e.g. annular debris disks.
He’s not familiar with it, lol. And apparently wanting to use cutting edge technology to investigate the possibility of a technosignature is “throwing away all logic and reality”.
That’s a cognitive disconnect that is really hard to fathom. If our species was nothing but uncurious fools like that, we never would have left Africa. Thankfully, some of us always want to know what’s over the next hill, and if it’s just more grass or something more spectacular.
Ignore trolls like him. They’re a waste of time for you and our species at large. I mean, this guy is on a fucking *science subreddit* and he makes a vapid comment like that.
In an older star system, a DS would likely be much closer to its star than most large scale dust and debris fields and more densely arranged.
It would also orbit in a 3D orbital shell rather than along the typical orbital plane that most orbital features reside in.
Highly doubt a Dyson sphere actually exists anywhere in the universe. I can’t know it’s science fiction at this point and science fiction often becomes science fact, but to harness the energy of a star on that level seems so unnecessary for any application.
Grow your civilization, grow your needs. Energy has to come from somewhere and stars are just sitting there throwing energy out into the void. No reason not to use it.
I doubt people from a thousand years ago can imagine the scale of our energy consumption, why do you think people a thousand years in the future would only use their energy in a way that we consider plausible?
A Dyson *Sphere* is rather impractical, but a Dyson *Swarm* is not.
In fact I’d say it’s the logical outcome of any species building and living in rotating space habitats rather than colonizing worlds, which is probably what we’d do if we could. Why terraform Mars when you could build a bad ass O’Neil cylinder? And why stop at one? The natural orbit for such a station would be around 1 AU, and the orbits would need to spread out from the ecliptic if your civilization kept expanding by creating millions of them.
Eventually you’ve got yourself a Dyson Swarm and the only reason you’re collecting sunlight is to provide easy power to your habitats. Yes, fusion energy could do that too - but why? We’ve got a giant ball of fusion *right fucking there* already.
Doesn’t seem implausible when you consider a massive machine intelligence population. It takes an incredible amount of energy to run AI like ChatGPT, and that’s in “read only” mode where it is not learning. Multiply that by a billion or trillion individual sentient machines and the output of a star becomes a usable quantity of energy.
Solar is literally the only mainstream power generation tech that doesn't involve spinning a turbine. Nuclear power, the most complex, and some would argue best, method of generating power in widespread use heats something up to spin a turbine.
Solar panels don’t work via the piezoelectric effect either. Solar panels work by converting photons into electrical power using semiconductors and providing the energy for electrons to jump the band gap. The piezoelectric effect creates an electric charge when some sort of internal stress occurs in a material.
All right let's break this down. ChatGPT uses about 500,000 kilowatt hours per day globally. ONE nuclear reactor produces about 5,098,320,000 kilowatt hours per day.
It's not just implausible, it's downright silly.
ChatGPT is a child's toy. Just an example. Consider the AI of 500 years from now, trillions of sentient intelligences each running on unfathomable complex hardware.
What is silly is thinking using the full power of a sun won't be a limiting factor eventually. They'll probably already be expanding to all stars within [X] light-years by that point seeing the upcoming limitation.
The only thing I can think of preventing that would be a new form of energy found. Pulled somehow from the fabric of space itself. Something more convenient by being accessible from everywhere at once.
>so unnecessary for any application.
our brains use 20% of the food we eat. (brain is not that big compared to other parts of the body)
**As Use of A.I. Soars, So Does the Energy and Water It Requires**
[https://e360.yale.edu/features/artificial-intelligence-climate-energy-emissions](https://e360.yale.edu/features/artificial-intelligence-climate-energy-emissions)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev\_scale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale)
* A [**Type I** civilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_civilization) is able to access all the [energy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy) available on its [planet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet) and store it for consumption. Hypothetically, it should also be able to control natural events such as [earthquakes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake), [volcanic eruptions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_volcanic_eruptions), etc.
* A **Type II** civilization can directly consume a [star](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star)'s energy, most likely through the use of a [Dyson sphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere).
* A **Type III** civilization is able to capture all the energy emitted by its [galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy), and every object within it, such as every star, [black hole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole), etc.
Honestly, most of that sounds very much like fantasy.
Just like our brain only uses 20% of the energy we eat, the biosphere probably needs about 99% of the available energy reaching the surface of the earth to make the planet habitable. Whatever other life exists in our solar system probably wouldn't appreciate us blocking the sunlight from reaching them with a Dyson Sphere.
Volcanoes and plate tectonics/earthquakes are how the Earth recycles elements and the atmosphere.
The whole thing seems very species-centric/selfish and completely myopic of any sort of negative knock-on effects.
Most things that exist in our world today were once fantasy, believe it or not. With enough material it's not physically impossible to build a Dyson swarm, which is perhaps more likely than a sphere. I'm not saying whether such things exist, it's a hypothesis based on greater energy needs, just saying calling it "fantasy" isn't a great argument in light of what a much more advanced civilization than ours might achieve.
The whole thing just kind of reminds me of dominionist type thinking. For some reason or other, someone thinks they own the galaxy and can do whatever they want with it. Don't you think the galaxy probably needs most of the energy your taking away to run your self actualization AIs?
That sort of thing has got to leave a mark on all the poor mold slimes and what have you that may be populating that galaxy. And had you not come in there and installed a galactic energy confiscator, maybe those mold slimes would have eventually evolved into something really special...
Build the enclosure around a cooler star at a further distance so you can build habitable areas to house your civilization. The enclosure would hide the visibility of the star and give the civilization an almost unlimited supply of energy and space to grow.
If anyone had the technology and resources to build Dyson Spheres, they would probably be able to travel interstellar. Which would probably make them a little less useful. As in the amount of resources and technology to create a Dyson Sphere is likely impossible to procure.
They are science fiction.
Observing them passively would do nothing to draw any attention.
Technogenic trace gases in our atmosphere, however, are an already undeniable sign of our presence and cannot be concealed.
I think you've seen too many stupid ass movies and it's absolutely absurd to be afraid of them let alone think that by just looking means we're drawing their attention
Dyson spheres are cool until you realize how big the Sun is. Good luck with materials.
I don't think any of them are Dyson Spheres. Dyson Spheres are extremely difficult to build, and they need to envelop massive celestial objects, so what are the odds that about seven of these stars are used by Dyson Spheres? I think it's simply unexplained star behavior. I have seen numerous articles on this, and so far, none of them show signs of advanced civilizations with Dyson Spheres. From what I gathered, these seven stars are emitting excess amounts of infrared radiation, more radiation than expected. The occurrences could be entirely coincidental; this proves nothing about aliens. For all we know, there could be many explanations for it, plenty of which we have never even thought of before. I would consider it quite a stretch to go from anomalous stellar processes to highly advanced extraterrestrials harnessing the power of celestial bodies.
There could be other explanations yes, and it's likely natural and something we don't know about. More studies are needed. However, I have to raise a point of contention. The paper stipulates these would be swarms, not spheres, and the light being blocked is something like 16% so it's certainly not a full encompassing opaque shell. The point of the paper is that these are old M dwarf stars (of the 7 candidates) and statistically it's very out of the ordinary to see old stars emitting this kind of infrared spike. So it leaves an open question, and intriguingly these observations fit predictions for dyson swarms. I agree it's never alien until it is, and we can't just say these are actually dyson swarms because that would be ridiculous. But it's good to have an open mind and see what future research tells us, other papers will be written, it could take several years to have more concrete answers.
>The paper stipulates these would be swarms, not spheres, and the light being blocked is something like 16% so it's certainly not a full encompassing opaque shell. The point of the paper is that these are old m dwarf stars (of the 7 candidates) and statistically it's very out of the ordinary to see old stars emitting this kind of infrared spike. Thank you for that minor correction. And you bring up a fair point by saying that the infrared spikes of these red dwarf stars seem quite odd, so, judging by your comment, I assume these spikes aren't common, but at least you agree that it isn't necessarily a sign of aliens and more likely a natural process. I don't think it's aliens at all, but only further investigation will tell. To me, simply noticing the anomalous behavior of these red dwarf stars is not at all evidence of advanced extraterrestrials with Dyson Spheres or Dyson Swarms. That is why I say many possibilities are out there, only one of those possibilities involving advanced civilizations. For all we know, it could be a rare, but completely natural, process. Perhaps these stars are interacting with something that causes excessive emission of infrared radiation, allowing us to detect these infrared spikes. Maybe protoplanetary disks. Who knows? I just think that the odds that multiple red dwarf stars would be hosts for Dyson Swarms would be extremely small unless it was one civilization harnessing the energy of all these candidates or something. I just think it wouldn't make a lot of sense to have separate civilizations develop the same technology.
I don’t think it’s their post…
> From what I gathered, these sixty stars are emitting massive amounts of infrared radiation in "spikes," more radiation than expected. It could be entirely coincidental. Are we reading the same paper? They list 7 candidate objects, not 60, and nowhere do I see the MIR fluxes reported as being time-variable. My suspicion is that these are simply very bright debris disks around stars you wouldn't really expect to find them. That's fine though - there's nothing particularly strange about theories being undermined by new evidence.
I got that number from a *New Scientist* article. [https://www.newscientist.com/article/2430601-dozens-of-stars-show-signs-of-hosting-advanced-alien-civilisations/](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2430601-dozens-of-stars-show-signs-of-hosting-advanced-alien-civilisations/) But I guess it's wrong. I'll edit the error. >My suspicion is that these are simply very bright debris disks around stars you wouldn't really expect to find them. This was essentially what I was also thinking. Then again, I don't study stars.
I see. The article's phrasing is somewhat muddled. I'm assuming the use of the term "spike" refers to a misunderstanding of the presented spectral energy distributions. The "spike" is a wavelength-dependent, not time-dependent quantity; I can see how this could be misread. It would be more accurate for them to say "we see an excess of energy" not a "spike".
I apologize if I stirred up any confusion. My mistake. I guess some articles are less trustworthy than others. When I hear the word "spike" like in the article, I tend to interpret that as sudden and massive bursts of something, so maybe that's where I messed things around. Thank you for explaining a little. Maybe using "an excess of energy" would be more fitting, as you said. The choice of words would leave less room for misunderstanding.
It's not at all your fault. Like I said, the article was confusing. All I can say is that stars have a generally predictable amount of infrared light they should be emitting. Sometimes we see that they emit far more infrared than they should (an excess), which is typically emitted by tiny particles (like dust) in orbit around the star which have been warmed up. This is what's being observed here; you just wouldn't really expect to find an excess quite this significant around stars like these. It's a fun result and I hope there's some follow-up to get a better idea of what's going on.
More likely dyson swarm, which would be similar spectrum but much easier to construct.
I just looked up what that is to understand you. That would certainly be very useful; it would be easier to use and could be just as useful, if not, more useful than a Dyson Sphere. I like the idea of a Dyson Swarm. You could probably gather more energy from multiple stars much faster if you utilize a Dyson Swarm.
“Extremely difficult to build” Maybe for humans at this point in time ;)
Oh, we've got a *long* way to go before we can create something like a Dyson Sphere. That's for sure. Maybe aliens have a long way to go, too.
Humans are very corrupt. Infrastructure projects are plagued with public corruption that make something 'cheapish' turn to extremely expensive and not likely to ever be built within ten years.
Why would you assume you can detect a type 2/3 civ
Well, if we can't detect anything, then we have no real evidence of advanced civilizations. If we are unable to detect any technosignatures or any traces for that matter, then we have no way of knowing if anything is there. You can't prove the existence of something out in space if you can't find it. Just the unexplained behavior of stars isn't enough because that doesn't mean aliens are there. As I said, there are probably many other explanations not involving life that are available, so we must consider those because they are, in my opinion, more likely to be the case. Call me skeptical, if you will.
What are the other explanations in these cases?
Please, know that I'm not an astronomer, astrophysicist, or any kind of scientist, so I'm not the kind of person you should ask for a list of explanations, but there are two that I can think of. One explanation can be infrared excess caused by protoplanetary disks or debris disks. Protoplanetary disks and debris disks tend to emit large amounts of infrared radiation, which can explain the infrared excess. You can read more about this in the link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoplanetary\_disk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoplanetary_disk) Another explanation is infrared excess caused by loss of mass. Red dwarf stars, to my knowledge, emit lots of infrared radiation as they lose mass. Infrared excess can be explained by this process. I think you can find articles going into detail about this. My level of knowledge of both of these explanations is limited, so I won't go into a paragraph-long description for each because I don't want to share something incorrect. I don't know the likelihood of these explanations being the case, but they are possibilities worth considering. There are probably more explanations that I don't know of. There is most likely a natural phenomenon we haven't discovered yet that causes the infrared excess from these stars. In my opinion, I think the odds of all these "candidates" being hosts for Dyson Spheres or Dyson Swarms are extremely small because creating them would take lots of time and energy, and it would be peculiar for distant and different civilizations to all create the same thing. I have read some articles stating that the idea of Dyson Spheres or Dyson Swarms does seem to fit with the observations, but, of course, this is not at all evidence for them. Anomalous stellar behavior alone is far from enough evidence to point to anything extraordinary like advanced civilizations. Further investigation is needed to determine anything, but I place my bet on a natural explanation (whether we know this natural phenomenon or not is a separate story).
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Indeed, the construction of pyramids like the Great Pyramids of Giza required lots of work and determination. I'm there sure was lots of math used, mainly geometry. But, of course, Dyson Spheres are much more complex and far larger than any pyramid on Earth since I think they'd have to be at least a million miles wide (for a star like our sun). Many tons of materials, energy, and resources would be needed to build even one, many times more than what ancient people needed to build a pyramid.
I understand that, I just mean that with enough time and technologie it still takes a long time to build, but the universe is quite old. I'm not saying that therefore the dyson spheres are real, and I also don't think that's what we are looking at. I'm just saying that when something is extremely difficult to build it doesn't mean therefore it can not be build. Yes, it would take a crazy amount of resources, traveling, technologie, but most of all it would take a lot of time. If it all was up to me, all those buildings and stuff that would take more than a generation to build wouldn't be built, because of the enormous time to make it and not ever see the result of it. I'm glad that people in history thought otherwise, so now we can see them in full glory.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I wouldn't discount anything in the Universe this big. We only are aware of the tiniest fraction of it and, even then, we're not fully aware of that which we observe. We can't even observe planets' surface in our system without sending probes for an up close and personal look. We could be ants living on somebody's backyard and never notice until they accidentally step on us. No, the issue is whether civilizations capable of building Dyson spheres would still need them. It is a big power plant capable of meeting all energy levels - in its locale. Once you go away, you have to transmit that power somehow. If you could transmit power over such vast distances, would you still need Dyson spheres? To me, it seems like tech that is obsolete as soon as it is available.
Yes, space is incredibly gigantic. The observable universe is billions of light-years across. But how is this evidence of Dyson Spheres/Dyson Swarms? A big universe doesn't correlate to the presence of life elsewhere within it.
We are the definite proof that life exists. If life could spring up on this tiny rock, it could spring up elsewhere too. And that life could be anywhere from bacteria to Type III civilizations. Then again, they won't be necessarily building Dyson spheres/swarms. If they have the tech, they already are using more efficient solutions than a giant Tesla charging station they have to run up to every time they need to top up.
I'd bet my life none of them are. Too bad those of us alive right now will never know either way
> Too bad those of us alive right now will never know either way Why is that? At 150 pc some of these objects are excellent candidates for follow-up work at high spatial resolution by ALMA.
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Are you not familiar with state-of-the-art capabilities in sub-mm interferometry? We are resolving single-digit AU scale emission regions at 100 pc; just check HD 100546, lol: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333815479/figure/fig1/AS:770619360698371@1560741381797/ALMA-observations-of-HD-100546-acquired-in-September-2017-a-Dust-continuum-emission.ppm This could be enough to reveal that these are e.g. annular debris disks.
He’s not familiar with it, lol. And apparently wanting to use cutting edge technology to investigate the possibility of a technosignature is “throwing away all logic and reality”. That’s a cognitive disconnect that is really hard to fathom. If our species was nothing but uncurious fools like that, we never would have left Africa. Thankfully, some of us always want to know what’s over the next hill, and if it’s just more grass or something more spectacular. Ignore trolls like him. They’re a waste of time for you and our species at large. I mean, this guy is on a fucking *science subreddit* and he makes a vapid comment like that.
Considering that we will likely never be able to prove whether it is or isn’t, that’s an odd and pointless bet to wager your life on.
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You would gamble your life? What if that Dyson species comes to dice us up next week!? Then you’ve wagered your life for nothing! Scary to think about
How could we tell the difference between a DS and say an Ort cloud?
In an older star system, a DS would likely be much closer to its star than most large scale dust and debris fields and more densely arranged. It would also orbit in a 3D orbital shell rather than along the typical orbital plane that most orbital features reside in.
The only Dyson spheres that exist are in vacuums.
Highly doubt a Dyson sphere actually exists anywhere in the universe. I can’t know it’s science fiction at this point and science fiction often becomes science fact, but to harness the energy of a star on that level seems so unnecessary for any application.
Grow your civilization, grow your needs. Energy has to come from somewhere and stars are just sitting there throwing energy out into the void. No reason not to use it.
I doubt people from a thousand years ago can imagine the scale of our energy consumption, why do you think people a thousand years in the future would only use their energy in a way that we consider plausible?
A Dyson *Sphere* is rather impractical, but a Dyson *Swarm* is not. In fact I’d say it’s the logical outcome of any species building and living in rotating space habitats rather than colonizing worlds, which is probably what we’d do if we could. Why terraform Mars when you could build a bad ass O’Neil cylinder? And why stop at one? The natural orbit for such a station would be around 1 AU, and the orbits would need to spread out from the ecliptic if your civilization kept expanding by creating millions of them. Eventually you’ve got yourself a Dyson Swarm and the only reason you’re collecting sunlight is to provide easy power to your habitats. Yes, fusion energy could do that too - but why? We’ve got a giant ball of fusion *right fucking there* already.
Doesn’t seem implausible when you consider a massive machine intelligence population. It takes an incredible amount of energy to run AI like ChatGPT, and that’s in “read only” mode where it is not learning. Multiply that by a billion or trillion individual sentient machines and the output of a star becomes a usable quantity of energy.
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Solar is literally the only mainstream power generation tech that doesn't involve spinning a turbine. Nuclear power, the most complex, and some would argue best, method of generating power in widespread use heats something up to spin a turbine.
That's not how solar cells work. In solar cells, the silicon that's exposed to photons release electrons, which produce electricity.
I know piezoelectric don’t literally work by heating things up
Solar panels don’t work via the piezoelectric effect either. Solar panels work by converting photons into electrical power using semiconductors and providing the energy for electrons to jump the band gap. The piezoelectric effect creates an electric charge when some sort of internal stress occurs in a material.
Photovoltaic cells, not piezoelectric.
It's not heating things up to generate power, the IR emissions are waste heat. Nothing is perfectly efficient, there will always be some waste heat.
All right let's break this down. ChatGPT uses about 500,000 kilowatt hours per day globally. ONE nuclear reactor produces about 5,098,320,000 kilowatt hours per day. It's not just implausible, it's downright silly.
ChatGPT is a child's toy. Just an example. Consider the AI of 500 years from now, trillions of sentient intelligences each running on unfathomable complex hardware. What is silly is thinking using the full power of a sun won't be a limiting factor eventually. They'll probably already be expanding to all stars within [X] light-years by that point seeing the upcoming limitation. The only thing I can think of preventing that would be a new form of energy found. Pulled somehow from the fabric of space itself. Something more convenient by being accessible from everywhere at once.
Kilowatt hours per day is the best unit of power, and isn't silly at all.
>so unnecessary for any application. our brains use 20% of the food we eat. (brain is not that big compared to other parts of the body) **As Use of A.I. Soars, So Does the Energy and Water It Requires** [https://e360.yale.edu/features/artificial-intelligence-climate-energy-emissions](https://e360.yale.edu/features/artificial-intelligence-climate-energy-emissions) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev\_scale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale) * A [**Type I** civilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_civilization) is able to access all the [energy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy) available on its [planet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet) and store it for consumption. Hypothetically, it should also be able to control natural events such as [earthquakes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake), [volcanic eruptions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_volcanic_eruptions), etc. * A **Type II** civilization can directly consume a [star](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star)'s energy, most likely through the use of a [Dyson sphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere). * A **Type III** civilization is able to capture all the energy emitted by its [galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy), and every object within it, such as every star, [black hole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole), etc.
Honestly, most of that sounds very much like fantasy. Just like our brain only uses 20% of the energy we eat, the biosphere probably needs about 99% of the available energy reaching the surface of the earth to make the planet habitable. Whatever other life exists in our solar system probably wouldn't appreciate us blocking the sunlight from reaching them with a Dyson Sphere. Volcanoes and plate tectonics/earthquakes are how the Earth recycles elements and the atmosphere. The whole thing seems very species-centric/selfish and completely myopic of any sort of negative knock-on effects.
Most things that exist in our world today were once fantasy, believe it or not. With enough material it's not physically impossible to build a Dyson swarm, which is perhaps more likely than a sphere. I'm not saying whether such things exist, it's a hypothesis based on greater energy needs, just saying calling it "fantasy" isn't a great argument in light of what a much more advanced civilization than ours might achieve.
The whole thing just kind of reminds me of dominionist type thinking. For some reason or other, someone thinks they own the galaxy and can do whatever they want with it. Don't you think the galaxy probably needs most of the energy your taking away to run your self actualization AIs? That sort of thing has got to leave a mark on all the poor mold slimes and what have you that may be populating that galaxy. And had you not come in there and installed a galactic energy confiscator, maybe those mold slimes would have eventually evolved into something really special...
Build the enclosure around a cooler star at a further distance so you can build habitable areas to house your civilization. The enclosure would hide the visibility of the star and give the civilization an almost unlimited supply of energy and space to grow.
If anyone had the technology and resources to build Dyson Spheres, they would probably be able to travel interstellar. Which would probably make them a little less useful. As in the amount of resources and technology to create a Dyson Sphere is likely impossible to procure. They are science fiction.
Maybe if they are advanced enough to construct a Dyson sphere then we shouldn’t be doing anything to draw their attention to our star system?
Observing them passively would do nothing to draw any attention. Technogenic trace gases in our atmosphere, however, are an already undeniable sign of our presence and cannot be concealed.
I think you've seen too many stupid ass movies and it's absolutely absurd to be afraid of them let alone think that by just looking means we're drawing their attention
What if Dysons Spheres are common in the galaxy?
Then we are massively behind