http://au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/a/-/technology/10027899/Blacker-than-coal-alien-planet-is-the-darkest-ever/

Looks alike a world that is harnessing all (well 99% anyway) the light from it's primary..... We might just have found ET the hard way. ;-)

Thomas.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/a/-/technology/10027899/Blacker-than-coal-alien-planet-is-the-darkest-ever/

Looks alike a world that is harnessing all (well 99% anyway) the light from it's primary..... We might just have found ET the hard way. ;-)

Thomas.

made your link clickable

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Thanks, knew I forgot something!

It seems possible. The smallest red dwarf stars fall into this size range. It would be much easier to surround a very small star with energy collectors than in the usual scenario, with a Sun-like star and a 1 AU radius shell. At 980 degrees C., habitability of a 'shell' of objects seems doubtful in this case. Perhaps this is an energy collection station, and the power could be transmitted to another planet in the system. The shell might also be collecting energy from the larger star, which is very near. This sort of situation would seem to represent an interesting intermediate position between a Kardashev 1 and 2 civilizations. I read the linked article a few days ago. This possibility never occurred to me. I congratulate you on the breadth of your imagination! Michael

I was thinking more along the lines of the planet is more "earth" sized and is in the center of the Jupiter sized collector shell, but on second thoughts it does leave the civilization having to deal with a lot of radiant heat from the shell.

Much easier to build the collector and beam to another location. Still WAY more energy than we could use ATM though.....

The energy incident on the shell, from the very nearby G star would seem to be truly formidable. I calculate that the shell would receive from it about 3 & 1/2 million times as much energy as an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of the star. Michael

Ok so my maths wasn't out, I didn't post the numbers I got as they seemed way too big! LOL

Makes you wanna’ wonder what sort of life forms could be there. What kind of life processes may be necessary for them to evolve there? Instead of burning hydrogen with oxygen, may be burning hydrogen with chlorine.

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