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Astronomers search for Dyson Spheres


Saru

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Perhaps I am missing something here, but we are not talking about a planet sized sphere here, as difficult as that would be. We are talking about a sphere the size of a planet's orbit, if one is talking about encasing a star. Think about that: all the material on all the rocky planets, moons, etcetera, in our solar system would not amount to enough material to encase our sun even one meter outside of it's outer layer. Now expand that out to the orbit of the Earth (or even Mercury) and you begin to see the unreality of the problem. And if there was truly a space fairing civilization who had the ability to collect material from outside of their home star system, would it not be far easier to colonize other stellar systems then to build something of this magnitude?

Look, I am always telling people don't discount science fiction because so much of what was once fiction has become scientific fact. But something on this scale seems total unrealistic at best. There is a cost/benefit ratio and the cost would be off the charts.

And you thought we have a debt and deficit crisis!

I was just about to start a very similar reply and thought I better make sure nobody neat me to it.

You did ;)

Developing the technology to encase a star seems like fun in Star Trek, but in reality any civilisation with that kind of technology and that level of available resources wouldn't need to waste them creating a Dyson Sphere.

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I was just about to start a very similar reply and thought I better make sure nobody neat me to it.

You did ;)

Developing the technology to encase a star seems like fun in Star Trek, but in reality any civilisation with that kind of technology and that level of available resources wouldn't need to waste them creating a Dyson Sphere.

Well, not trying to rain on anyone's parade, just seems so illogical or unlikely given the cost of bring materials from outside of a solar system to build such a structure. Yes when finished you might have unlimited energy, but it would take nearly unlimited energy to build it in the first place!

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I thought there was a movie based on this scenerio... and they did make a dyson type energy absorber to save earth??? Either way dont think we would have to shell the whole sun.... a good size "charging" station i think would be just as affective. Dont think we need all the solar power at once, just in bursts maybe.... intresting though.... but i would think if this alien race had the ability to make such a thing, wouldnt it be easier to locate another planet to inhabit????

Edited by MidKn13ght
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Human use of energy has grown exponentially over time. We use about 115 times more than our remote hunter/gatherer ancestors, before they discovered fire. It doesn't seem likely that even someone from the Renaissance, fresh with the idea of human progress, could have believed that people, 600 years hence, would use 12 times as much energy as they did; what use they could possibly make of it, or how they could afford it. Nevertheless, we manage to do so, and even to foresee the need for more energy, and the possibility of producing it. It seems risky to try to place limits on what may be possible in the future.

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I saw something like this on an episode of Star Trek TNG where the Enterprise found a sun with a Dyson Sphere and Scotty

(James Doohan) crashed on it.

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Bison, thank you for your explaination ;)

So, they should move from their planet and live around their star, in order to have energy.

This looks every minute more impracticable and inefficient to me.

Human use of energy has grown exponentially over time. We use about 115 times more than our remote hunter/gatherer ancestors, before they discovered fire. It doesn't seem likely that even someone from the Renaissance, fresh with the idea of human progress, could have believed that people, 600 years hence, would use 12 times as much energy as they did; what use they could possibly make of it, or how they could afford it. Nevertheless, we manage to do so, and even to foresee the need for more energy, and the possibility of producing it. It seems risky to try to place limits on what may be possible in the future.

Where did you get those numbers?

Honestly I thought were higher. Are they expressed in Joule or which unit of measurement?

To me it's not completely correct to confront pre-electricity civilizations and us in terms of energy consumption.

You say that It seems risky to try to place limits on what may be possible in the future, but maybe it's more risky to not place a limit on where we can go with energy demand, otherwise we're really just a virus on this Earth.

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A Dyson Sphere would be fantastic if a civilization had gravity manipulation, and/or energy to matter conversion.

If a society could produce raw materials directly from energy, and if they had gravity control, they could build a dyson sphere and live on the inside and have room for billions of trillions of people. And they would still need more energy....

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Bison, thank you for your explaination ;)

So, they should move from their planet and live around their star, in order to have energy.

This looks every minute more impracticable and inefficient to me.

Where did you get those numbers?

Honestly I thought were higher. Are they expressed in Joule or which unit of measurement?

To me it's not completely correct to confront pre-electricity civilizations and us in terms of energy consumption.

You say that It seems risky to try to place limits on what may be possible in the future, but maybe it's more risky to not place a limit on where we can go with energy demand, otherwise we're really just a virus on this Earth.

I got the numbers from the website linked below. They are rendered into Kilocalories, so that the heat production of human and animal metabolism and of simple fires can be compared to modern forms of energy, like electricity. In common with life in general, humans have expanded their territory, numbers and energy sources, over time. If we can learn to do this in an environmentally sustainable manner, I see no reason why this process should not continue. http://www.wou.edu/las/physci/GS361/electricity%20generation/HistoricalPerspectives.htm Edited by bison
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Three astronomers have been awarded a grant to assist them in locating Dyson Spheres in space.

I think this is pointless.

I expect any Dysons Spheres to have true stealth capability.

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