 |
| A star-surrounding Dyson Sphere could be solid, swarm-like, or anywhere in between. (source: Sentient Developments) |
Astroboffins to search for mega-massive alien power plants
Dyson Spheres – not just for Star Trek anymore
Posted in Science, 5th October 2012 20:01 GMT
Lead by assistant professor Jason Wright of Penn State's Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, the team will use NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to search the sky for the infrared fingerprints of possible Dyson Spheres, energy-capturing mega-structures named after all-around smart guy Freeman Dyson, who postulated their existence in a 1960 paper.
According to Dyson, any advanced civilization would inevitably use up all of the resources on their planet, and would be forced to look elsewhere for energy. The most obvious place, he surmised, would be the star around which their planet orbits.
To capture that energy, they would construct the aforementioned Spheres – mind-bogglingly immense structures that would surround the star and collect its energy. These structures could be actual spheres, but more likely would take the form of rings, swarms, or banded spherical collections of energy harvesters.
No matter what form they might take, they'd undoubtedly give off infrared radiation that could be detected by such sensitive sensors such as those aboard WISE – and that's where Wright and his team come in.
The Atlantic reports that Wright has been awarded funding from the John Templeton Foundation to conduct his search, in response to his proposal, "Constraining the Abundance of Kardashev Type II and III Civilizations From Large Area Infrared Surveys".
We'll get back to Kardashev's civilization types in a moment.
Continue reading here: The Register
**************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment
LITS is a site dedicated to the study of the UFO and alien phenomena. You'll find information about UFO sightings, alien abductions, astronomy, science and technology.
This is a Non-profit site. Comments that contain URLs will be deleted.
I do not edit comments, so if you don't want your address posted and you have a question, or have had a sighting you wish to report, please email me directly, rather than post a comment. My email addresses are listed on the "Report UFO Sightings" page. Thank you.