Ha ha yup me too! Got one hiding in my closet. $50 and it’s theirs 🤣

Even a Dyson sphere, which is technically unlikely anyway, would be possible to spot. You would look for something very bright in the infrared spectrum with almost no light in the visible spectrum. It would also be larger than a normal star of the same energy, but that would be hard to tell given all the other issues.

A partial swarm is easier because it will have variability towards more infrared and then back to a more normal spectrum.

And, of course, all this is speculation until we find a candidate and determine it doesn't have a natural source for that behavior.

Dyson swarms are more likely. We even have a tiny one with our satellites using solar power in a heliocentric orbit. (Dyson spheres are basically impossible.) But we could theoretically detect either in infrared since if it doesn’t give off waste heat, it’d all heat up and melt.

That being said, I’m personally of the opinion this is a waste of time. Not to get all Fermi Paradox but it’s pretty sci fi brained to think any other species out there is as dumb as we are. Space sucks. You die super fast there. Everything had to align just right for Earth to make a bunch of dumb fuck apes willing to strap themselves onto rockets, have a planet small enough that the rocket could even overcome gravity to enter orbit using chemical rockets, and a World War and Cold War to accelerate things.

If it was actually completely enclosing a star that would be impressive. It would also be a bit pointless, since It would result in your spear heating up to stupid temperatures, Which would cause it to glow in the infrared, so you would detect it by that infrared.

Agree this sounds ridiculous, but isn’t this the basic point of science? Propose something is possible, then make predictions and see if you can prove or disprove. The Dyson Sphere idea itself is ridiculous, but to the extent you can detect large scale technology around a star, that would be fantastic. Even better, this is simply a query on existing data. Imagine if they detected intelligent life this way!

Kind of reminds me of the search for Dark Matter. That whole idea sounds so preposterous yet is the best fit for our current knowledge. But we can make predictions based on this. What could all this matter be to fit the theory while remaining undetected so far? Then you can build particle detectors to find them and particle accelerators to explore conditions for causing them. Eventually we should be able to either detect that matter or to rule out enough possibilities for another theory to better fit our knowledge

We don't really know that building a long-term colony on the Moon or Mars is feasible. We assume that it is because there's no obvious reason that it isn't possible other than it being difficult, but that's just a matter of working up to the necessary technology level.

There's nothing inherently problematic in the idea, it's just very big and ambitious. Equally we have no reason to believe that mega structures are not possible, you throw enough resources and science at the problem. FTL on the other hand has real physical restrictions against its existence, we have no reason to believe those restrictions can be overcome.

Dyson spheres are just very very big, no new crazy negative energy, subspace conduits required, just brute force engineering.

In the Kardashev Scale, a Type II Civilization would build a Dyson Sphere

I know there's an methodical thought process behind those things, but mhh... this feels more fiction than science to me.

I'm fine with research, but I'm worried some might use it as a slippery slope into pseudo science.

Wouldn't a Dyson swarm be much easier to construct than either? Like a dyson sphere but a swarm of smaller collectors.

RTFA they are looking for swarms, rings, and other subtypes of Dyson Spheres.

Ringworlds are not orbitally stable so they are firmly in the realm of sci fi.

But it’s unstable.

Stellaris users in the wild

We don't because we can't. We will just observe the thing for science and stuff.

Well if we find one we have proof of advanced life elsewhere in the universe. That's the most important thing. Reaching out will take millions of years.

No. So it works just like the vaccuum cleaner.

Kind of, except it is more like wrapped around a star and sucks up light.