2024-07-03 07:28:08
In theory, highly advanced alien populations could build giant, highly technological megastructures around stars that could harvest the energy emitted by the star.
Scientists have yet to find evidence that Dyson spheres exist. But if they are real, we should be able to find them, and researchers have been looking for them for decades, ever since the 1960s. physicist Freeman Dyson first proposed this idea.
Now žurnale „Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society“ A published study has identified seven stars in our galaxy that exhibit difficult-to-explain behavior that may indicate the existence of Dyson spheres.
What exactly is a Dyson Sphere?
“Dyson spheres are most likely satellites with very wide surfaces orbiting the star,” said Suman Majumdar, an associate professor of astronomy, astrophysics and space engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, and co-author of the study.
According to Dyson’s original theory, such a construction would give an advanced civilization access to an unlimited source of energy, allowing their population and industry to grow exponentially.
There should also be gaps between the satellites through which some of the star’s radiation could penetrate. And the rest of the light would be absorbed by the satellites and re-radiated back into space as pulses of infrared radiation called infrared emission. infrared excess emissionsIEE) – it could be a way to detect the distant Dyson sphere from Earth.
For the study, the researchers analyzed more than 5 million stars throughout the Milky Way that exhibit IEE. But Dyson spheres are not the only possible explanation for such pulses.
“There are many reasons why stars can have extra infrared emission. This is usually because they are very young and have a proplanetary disk [tankų dujų ir dulkių debesį, besisukantį apie naujai susiformavusią žvaigždę]”said study co-author Jason Wright, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Pennsylvania (USA).
There are other natural explanations for IEE. That’s why the research team had to discard so many stars from an initial list of 5 million Dyson sphere candidates until they ended up with seven that recorded hard-to-explain IEEs and could potentially harbor alien megastructures.
Further research will first need to rule out all other possible explanations for IEE, writes Business Insider.
2024-07-03 07:28:08