When searching for signs of extraterrestrial life, all ideas are good, including looking for a potential technosignature produced by an advanced civilization. Researchers have found potential indications around several dozen stars!
Imagine if we could harness all the energy of our Sun. To do this, we would need to build what scientists call a Dyson sphere. An immense structure – in the form of a bubble, ring, or even a swarm of satellites – capable of capturing its energy. Humanity is currently not capable of such a feat, but perhaps advanced extraterrestrial civilizations have already achieved it. Astronomers searching for signs of life elsewhere in the Universe certainly hope so. That’s why they have set out to find a star whose brightness would betray the presence of a Dyson sphere.
However, let’s not kid ourselves. Finding such a star in the vastness of the cosmos is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. But astronomers are persistent. And today, two separate studies claim to have unearthed not one, but several dozen serious candidates.
Dyson Spheres Betrayed by Their Infrared Radiation
In the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers from Uppsala University (Sweden) first present the advances of Project Hephaistos. This project is named after the Greek god of blacksmiths because it aims to detect signs of extraterrestrial technology. Not necessarily Dyson spheres, but why not also signs of industrial pollution in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, for example?
Examining optical and infrared data from satellites, physicists have developed a method to identify clues that could indicate the presence of a Dyson sphere around a star. Because these structures, in their estimation.Researchers, said to emit heat. Emitting mid-infrared radiation that astronomers might be able to detect. They applied the method to no less than five million objects in our sky. And they come out with… seven particularly convincing Dyson sphere candidates! Understand that for these, they recorded clear emissions in mid-infrared. Without known contaminants or identified natural sources that could be the cause. However, astronomers specify that the presence of hot debris disks surrounding these Dyson sphere candidates remains a plausible explanation for the observed infrared excess.
In parallel, researchers from the International School for Advanced Studies (Italy) present their own results. They also searched the data for excessive infrared emissions and found 53 Dyson sphere candidate stars. But they are also cautious. They emphasize that before thinking about advanced extraterrestrial civilization, all less exciting explanations must be ruled out. For example, the collision between two planets, which would produce a large amount of debris and radiation possibly similar to what a Dyson sphere built by extraterrestrials could emit.
To learn more, it will probably be necessary to observe all these candidates more closely. Perhaps with the James Webb Space Telescope.