8 facts about the Dyson Sphere (1 photo + 2 videos)

The Dyson sphere is probably one of the most iconic space structures. The mere mention of it can excite both the casual science fiction fan and the serious future technology enthusiast. Although the design is purely hypothetical, even with it there are misconceptions and misunderstandings of the idea itself.



1. Freeman Dyson described the design of a hypothetical giant sphere that collects maximum light from a star, not at all in order to consider the possibility of building such a structure, but as a goal in the search for highly developed extraterrestrial civilizations.

2. Therefore, the search for Dyson spheres is one of the current goals of the SETI search for extraterrestrial civilizations program.

3. It is known that the idea about the possibility of the existence of such structures came to Freeman Dyson after reading the book “The Star Maker” by Olaf Stapledon. However, even earlier, the concept of stellar settlements in the form of spheres and rings around stars was formulated by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in his work “Dreams of Earth and Sky” in 1895.

4. Dyson himself was annoyed that the sphere was christened after him.

5. Contrary to the image of this megastructure as a solid hollow sphere popularized by science fiction writers, such a design is practically impossible. A solid sphere would be extremely unstable in the star's orbit, and any gravitational disturbance or instability could collapse the sphere onto the star.

6. Constructing a sphere in the form of rings or a Dyson swarm would still require a huge amount of material. For example, in the solar system, to build a sphere with a radius of 1 astronomical unit (the distance from the Earth to the Sun), Mercury would have to be completely dismantled.

7. In development of Dyson's idea, a number of scientists believe that from the point of view of an advanced civilization, it would be more appropriate to build a sphere around a black hole rather than a star. In addition to the glow, this arrangement makes it possible to collect electromagnetic radiation and kinetic energy of the jets. And such a sphere requires much less building material, since the radius of the event horizon of a black hole is much smaller than the radius of the star from which this hole collapsed.

A few years ago, engineer Matthew Kaplan figured out how to use a Dyson sphere beyond its intended purpose in another megastructure (called the Kaplan engine), designed to move the entire solar system. According to his idea, the sphere should collect the energy of the Sun and direct it focused back to the star in order to knock out additional fuel from its surface.