Could anyone advise me here. If an 'dyson sphere' is what I think it is, and an advanced race of beings out there have surrounded their world with one, then how could we possibly detect them with our current instruments? Surely it would be impossible for us to know they are there, since we could never detect their planet and they would not receive any messages from us even if we could send them.

Susan

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'No one can make you inferior without your consent.'
Eleanor Roosevelt.

They would not have starlight either.

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TEAM
LL

i could be detected by the absence of light around it. it would be more like a
dark spot... but one problem with the sphere is that it would take more material then could be produced. it would take 100's of planets worth of material.... ????????????????

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Could anyone advise me here. If an 'dyson sphere' is what I think it is, and an advanced race of beings out there have surrounded their world with one, then how could we possibly detect them with our current instruments? Surely it would be impossible for us to know they are there, since we could never detect their planet and they would not receive any messages from us even if we could send them.

Susan

I love that Star Trek episode too.

Dyson sphere


And if it was emitting any kind of wave that our current technology could detect we'd still pick it up. There is no reason that just becuse they had a dyson sphere that they couldn't still sent out some radio waves. I'm not really sure that it would have any real effect on us picking them up if they wanted to be found... even then we could pick them up becuse of the huge gravity well that a sphere would leave.

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/Central Florida Astronomical Society

Well it's not the planet that the sphere surrounds, but rather the star out to the habitable zone. In our case that would be a sphere one A.U. in radius. The idea is to capture all of the system's availble solar energy for maximum efficiency.

Hypothetically speaking it wouldrequire some pretty exotic materials, possibly up to and including neutronium for strength, durability and protection. And yes, it would require the equivalent of literally thosands of planetary bodies to create.

A probable better happy medium between required resources and goals would be a ringworld.

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It should still emit heat we could detect. There's no such thing as a perfect insulator.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

It should still emit heat we could detect. There's no such thing as a perfect insulator.

Yes, I was wondering, an entire solar system and sun surrounded by one of these spheres might create a little too much heat inside wouldn't it? I don't suppose the astronomers would be pleased either if they couldn't view the universe.

Susan.

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'No one can make you inferior without your consent.'
Eleanor Roosevelt.

It should still emit heat we could detect. There's no such thing as a perfect insulator.

Yes, I was wondering, an entire solar system and sun surrounded by one of these spheres might create a little too much heat inside wouldn't it? I don't suppose the astronomers would be pleased either if they couldn't view the universe.

Susan.

The astronomers could just take an elevator "down" to the outer surface and have all the space they could want to set up observatories that are always in "night."

The theoretical motivation to build a Dyson Sphere is to harness all of the star's output... presumably the civilization would have a use for all that energy and a means of getting rid of the waste heat. The waste heat would be the most obvious "leakage" that astronomers could look for, but there is no reason to expect it to be sent out uniformly in all directions.

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

It should still emit heat we could detect. There's no such thing as a perfect insulator.

Yes, I was wondering, an entire solar system and sun surrounded by one of these spheres might create a little too much heat inside wouldn't it? I don't suppose the astronomers would be pleased either if they couldn't view the universe.

Susan.

The astronomers could just take an elevator "down" to the outer surface and have all the space they could want to set up observatories that are always in "night."

The theoretical motivation to build a Dyson Sphere is to harness all of the star's output... presumably the civilization would have a use for all that energy and a means of getting rid of the waste heat. The waste heat would be the most obvious "leakage" that astronomers could look for, but there is no reason to expect it to be sent out uniformly in all directions.

Well, yes, there would be low-energy infrared leakage through the Dyson shell....which should be detectable if such structures exist within our own galaxy.

If we were to build one, might we not wish to conceal ourselves and perhaps build within a nebular or some other obscuring gas cloud that could mask the infrared leakage?

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If we were to build one, might we not wish to conceal ourselves and perhaps build within a nebular or some other obscuring gas cloud that could mask the infrared leakage?

Well and like I said above... the sheer denisity of something like a Dyson's Sphear would produce a huge dint in space time. I would think that factor alone would actully make finding one easyer.

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/Central Florida Astronomical Society

However, a Dyson Sphere might turn out to be a bit of an obstacle for escaped convicts wouldn't it? The poor things wouldn't be able to leave their solar system and find another home. Not much fun I say. Ha Ha.

Susan.

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'No one can make you inferior without your consent.'
Eleanor Roosevelt.

If we were to build one, might we not wish to conceal ourselves and perhaps build within a nebular or some other obscuring gas cloud that could mask the infrared leakage?

Well and like I said above... the sheer denisity of something like a Dyson's Sphear would produce a huge dint in space time. I would think that factor alone would actully make finding one easyer.

Right, but our present technology doesn't really allow usthe resolution to differential between a small dense object in the midst of a nebula and something, say 1 AU radius, in the midst of said same.

Out in open space? Umm yeah we could with ease differentiate. As distance increases, our resolution leaves something to be desired.

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