The Dyson sphere is a theoretical mega-engineering project consisting of densely packed platforms orbiting the star. It is the ultimate solution for life and energy production in space, providing its creators with vast surface area to establish life and capture radiation from the central star with high efficiency.

Why Do We Need a Dyson Sphere?
According to Freeman Dyson, the British-American theoretical physicist who first came up with this hypothetical construct in 1960, after settling on some moons and planets in local stellar neighborhoods, an intelligent alien species would start to consume much more energy due to the increasing population, and as a result would want to undertake such an enterprise.

Assuming that the industry and population of this alien species grows at a steady 1% per year, Dyson’s calculations suggest that the space occupied by the species and its energy needs will grow exponentially, even trillionfold in 3000 years. If their solar system is the size of Jupiter, the species’ engineers should start thinking about how to break the planet into pieces and spread its mass across a spherical crust.
Building platforms 2 to 3 meters thick at twice the distance between the Sun and Earth would be conducive to life on the parts of the platforms facing the central star. Freeman Dyson: “A spherical shell of this thickness could easily be made habitable. It would also be easy to develop a mechanism to collect the solar radiation that falls on it.”
However, Dyson says, once the solar energy has been absorbed and used, the structure would need to radiate the energy back to prevent it from melting. For a distant observer, this would make the light from the star wrapped in the Dyson sphere appear faint or dimmed to the naked eye, depending on the orbit and frequency of platforms.

Could Dyson spheres be real?
Due to their infrared radiation, we can consider Dyson spheres as a kind of technological signature that distant astronauts could use to detect other beings in the universe. So far, a small number of researchers have scanned infrared maps of the night sky in the hope of spotting Dyson spheres, but none have seen anything out of the ordinary.

In 2015, an astronomer at Yale University named Tabetha Boyajian recorded a mysterious dimming of light from a star called KIC 8462852. This unusual flicker did not match any data previously recorded by researchers. Some researchers speculated that the flickering light dips could be caused by a built-in Dyson sphere. This idea attracted a lot of media attention. Technological campaigns organized by the agency to search for other signs of life, including one called Tabby’s star in honor of Boyajian, proved hollow. Moreover, many researchers are now trying to answer the behavior of light without looking for other life.

Dyson küreleri gerçek olabilir mi?
Kızılötesi radyasyonları nedeniyle Dyson kürelerini uzaktaki astronotların evrendeki diğer varlıkları tespit etmek için kullanabilecekleri bir tür teknolojik imza olarak düşünebiliriz. Şimdiye kadar az sayıda araştırmacı Dyson kürelerini tespit etme umuduyla gece gökyüzünün kızılötesi haritalarını taradı, ancak hiçbiri sıra dışı bir şey görmedi.

2015 yılında Yale Üniversitesi’nden Tabetha Boyajian adlı bir gökbilimci KIC 8462852 adlı bir yıldızdan gelen gizemli bir ışık azalması kaydetti. Bu olağandışı titreme, araştırmacılar tarafından daha önce kaydedilen hiçbir veriyle eşleşmiyordu. Bazı araştırmacılar titreyen ışık düşüşlerinin yerleşik bir Dyson küresinden kaynaklanabileceğini düşündü. Bu fikir medyanın büyük ilgisini çekti. Boyajian’ın onuruna Tabby’nin yıldızı adı verilen kampanya da dahil olmak üzere, ajans tarafından diğer yaşam belirtilerini aramak için düzenlenen teknolojik kampanyaların boş olduğu kanıtlandı. Dahası, pek çok araştırmacı artık başka bir yaşam aramaksızın ışığın davranışını yanıtlamaya çalışıyor.

Writter: Geoff Brumfiel