The Coldest Stars in Our Galaxy Might Be Dyson Spheres Harvesting Energy for an Alien Civilization: Astronomers have a new map to find an alien civilization by looking for stars that appear impossibly cold.

540 points by ConsciousRealism42 a day ago on reddit | 97 comments

Rot-Orkan | a day ago

Uhhhhh I think I'm gonna go with Occam's Razor here until I see some actual evidence for Dyson spheres.

frowningowl | a day ago

j4_jjjj | a day ago

Not sure what you mean, what's the simplest answer?

AlbertanSays5716 | a day ago

It’s probably safer to assume it’s something natural that you don’t understand yet than speculate about it being little green men.

NoSkillzDad | a day ago

>being little green men.

If they built a Dyson sphere, I'm pretty sure they are not little green men.

9fingerwonder | a day ago

Why? We would know literally nothing of them

NoSkillzDad | a day ago

>Why? We would know literally nothing of them

We know they built a Dyson sphere, duh!

From that I can't tell you it's practically impossible they are green. (Green is in one way or another connected to chlorophyll and since there's a DS, well, no chlorophyll related stuff for you).

The other problem is that a type II civilization probably left behind life as we know it:

  • biological aliens: fragile, need snacks, die before reaching 150
  • Dyson Architects: are probably sentient computronium clouds that think in tera hertz ;)

I'm pretty sure an entity of this alien civilization would color of a perfect black-body radiation. Only visible in the infrared Spectra.

Basically, if you have the tech to wrap a star in a shell, you’ve probably realized that having "arms," "legs," and "pigmentation" is so last millennium.

AlbertanSays5716 | a day ago

>Green is in one way or another connected to chlorophyll and since there's a DS, well, no chlorophyll related stuff for you).

So, green lizards photosynthesize? Hmmm.

And since you’re implying that green is related to photosynthesis and so needs sunlight, what makes you think there wouldn’t be sunlight on the inside of a Dyson Sphere or Dyson Swarm. I mean, by definition there’s pretty much nothing but sunlight.

sludge_dragon | a day ago

*ribbet*

NoSkillzDad | 20 hours ago

>So, green lizards photosynthesize? Hmmm.

Awww, that was a softball dude. Green lizards are green so they can hide in the green plants. How many desert lizards are green?

>what makes you think there wouldn’t be sunlight on the inside of a Dyson Sphere or Dyson Swarm.

Carbon creatures that close to the sun would go "aaaarrrrrghhhh, pssfffsshhhttttssshh" (smoke). I thought that was clear.

Come on, I put a bit of thought on my satire, don't be just a silly hater, put some effort into it.

AlbertanSays5716 | 12 hours ago

No hate intended, and clearly I struck a nerve, but if you’re now saying your comment was satire you might want to remember that sometimes that doesn’t come across in the written word and that it’s common to add a “/s” after a comment to be sure everyone understands that.

As for anyone frying on the inside of a Dyson Sphere, there’s a good chance a sphere or swarm would be built around an older dwarf star where the the sunlight isn’t as strong and at a distance the intensity isn’t a problem. That aside, if a species is capable of building it in the first place, I think they’d probably have taken radiation intensity into account.

Are we done now?

NoSkillzDad | 12 hours ago

>and clearly I struck a nerve

😂 You sure did.

Oh, wait... /s

>it’s common to add a “/s” after a comment to be sure everyone understands that.

Ah the old Poe's law. I thought that the use of "computronium" would give it away, or any other of my silly comments but no, we have to /s, it's the law!

>I think they’d probably have taken radiation intensity into account.

Sure... Sure... That's probably the most efficient way a type Ii civilization would tackle that issue, instead of, I don't know, evolving so this doesn't affect them as much as a primitive carbon based creature would? I mean, Occam's razor right?

>Are we done now?

I don't know, are we?

Maleficent-Duck-3903 | 2 hours ago

Tigers are orange to hide in the green plants… you’re making a lot of assumptions about how the green men perceive electromagnetic radiation…

NoSkillzDad | 2 hours ago

You know, at this point I'm starting to get a bit frustrated. I made a joke and I put a bit of thought into that because i assumed that the audience was at least a bit smart and knowledgeable. I expected some witty responses but I got only disappointment.

Tigers are not prey, they don't need to hide from predators, their prey on the other hand, (primarily deer and board), are red-green colorblind (they see the tigers' orange as a shade of green). The black stripes with the now "shade of green" mimics the light and shadow of the jungle.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

>you’re making a lot of assumptions about how the green men perceive electromagnetic radiation…

At least my assumptions have at least some resemblance of foundation, "little green men" at scorching temperatures? no questions asked! 🤦🏻‍♂️

Jive_Sloth | a day ago

Lmao. Imagine thinking green hues only come from chlorophyll.

There are shades of green all throughout the animal kingdom.

R1ck_Sanchez | 20 hours ago

Don't forget about the penicillin Kingdom!

The_Lapsed_Pacifist | a day ago

I really don’t want to be part of this foolishness but surely most of the green animals are green to blend in with the chlorophyll. So chlorophyll would be indirectly responsible for the green hues.

FaceDeer | 20 hours ago

There are also blue animals, what are they blending in with? The reasons for having pigmentation are extremely varied.

bilky_t | 20 hours ago

On Earth that would probably be correct, but I'm not a colourevolutionologist. It would be foolish to assume that life elsewhere needs to follow the same path to green.

snowballer918 | a day ago

This was way to thought out haha

SumpCrab | a day ago

There was very little thought there.

9fingerwonder | a day ago

Maybe they really enjoy the quality of the biological expirence. Maybe green and using super alien cholophyll is rad as hell.

Both of solutions have exactly the same backing. Your points speak of technology singularity, but maybe their people built it them engineered themselfs into a tree peoples who populated the entire inside of the sphere. We literally can't know what they might value vs what we do. Maybe they see a technological singularity as a dead end not worth the loss of living.

NoSkillzDad | 20 hours ago

>super alien cholophyll is rad as hell

Too close to the sun.

>a tree peoples who populated the entire inside of the sphere

Same answer as above... Carbon species there would go toastie black (both sides). And I don't think anybody would be building an airco inside a Dyson sphere, but that's just me thinking. 🤷🏻‍♂️

>We literally can't know what they might value vs what we do.

Actually we can. To reach a type II civilization you have to long leave behind Wars, genocides, and pedophile leaders. There's had to be a huge progressive and scientific drive where knowledge is fundamental.

9fingerwonder | 15 hours ago

You familiar with the ring world series? Getting to a technological level once doesn't mean you stay they.

AlbertanSays5716 | 12 hours ago

>Same answer as above... Carbon species there would go toastie black (both sides). And I don't think anybody would be building an airco inside a Dyson sphere, but that's just me thinking. 🤷🏻‍♂️

You think a species capable of building a Dyson Sphere wouldn’t have thought about or be capable of addressing the issue of radiation intensity? That strikes me as the same thinking that once said man can never travel faster than 15 mph because they wouldn’t be able to breathe. Then someone invented the windscreen.

NoSkillzDad | 12 hours ago

There's science fiction and pure fiction. In this case I like some science in the fiction.

Using the fallacy that because men once was wrong about something then they will be wrong about something else, somehow is very unconvincing to me.

If I say "we'll never travel faster than light" are you gonna use the same example?

SumpCrab | a day ago

... no to all of those assumptions.

NoSkillzDad | 20 hours ago

Darn! I put hundreds of seconds on my research. Just was about to hit send on my paper

Sylvanussr | a day ago

Except that they live in a Dyson sphere

robkinyon | 28 minutes ago

Once made a Dyson sphere. They could have all died out or uplifted or ... 🤷

micolasflanel | 19 hours ago

life is natural, i would just leave it at “something we don’t understand yet”

(i think occam’s razor is more of a thing when some kind of action or decision is needed based on incomplete information?)

JoelnIliketoshare | 9 hours ago

Seeing how we have only found life on this single planet, I would argue life is unnatural.

TCD_Baby | 13 hours ago

I'm pretty sure any little green men would also be natural phenomenon, and the Dyson sphere would be constructed using the natural laws on our universe

Edit: And to be clear, I'm saying I'm not sure that 'the rules of the universe as we understand them are completely wrong' is more straight forward than 'life (a thing we know exists' constructed a machine (as we have observed life on this planet doing) that is a Dyson sphere (a structure that we believe would be possible and quite beneficial)'

AlbertanSays5716 | 12 hours ago

While this may be technically true, it’s completely unhelpful. “Technically”, everything in the universe is natural by your definition, and there are no unnatural phenomena. Which doesn’t help us distinguish between a naturally occurring phenomenon and something constructed by an advanced species.

So let’s be clear: the little green men are (likely) a natural phenomenon. But it’s highly unlikely that most things they construct, especially a Dyson Sphere/Swarm, would occur spontaneously in nature.

D35TR0Y3R | a day ago

dust obscuration maybe?

helly1080 | 12 hours ago

Not aliens.

j4_jjjj | 10 hours ago

Thats a non answer

helly1080 | 10 hours ago

Well. I guess that’s my point. We don’t know what’s causing that. There is no answer and the best “Occam’s Razor” answer (a non-answer) is that it’s something. But why would it be aliens?

The best answer is likely a combination of what we know about cooler stars. Whatever stage they are in or if they have lower mass. Not aliens.

Could it be? Sure. Is it worth speculating that a Dyson sphere is the reason for this? I don’t personally think so.

Kindly-Ad607 | a day ago

Give me a break.

kronicpimpin | a day ago

Give me a break.

ianitic | a day ago

Break me off a piece of that

IsmaelRetzinsky | a day ago

Dyson sphere

Eledridan | a day ago

Chrysler car!

fish_finder | a day ago

Fancy Feast!

CaptainMagnets | a day ago

Fancy feast!

TheSweatyFlash | a day ago

Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar!

CarefulMoose_ | 6 hours ago

Don't forget to say r/FuckNestle !

11538 | 15 hours ago

Alright, I'll give you 10 minutes but you better get back to work after.

iampoopa | a day ago

They might be balls of dancing space Fairies.

agentcooper0115 | a day ago

You're high...

Pull-Billman | a day ago

Where are the radio signals?

Sober_Alcoholic_ | a day ago

Anything with a Dyson Sphere is orders of magnitude past radio technologically. I imagine they understand entanglement and use quantum computers.

Zealousideal_Leg213 | a day ago

Quantum entanglement doesn't mean radio is useless. You still need to transmit and receive data so both sides can make sense of their measurements of the entangled particles.

serious_sarcasm | a day ago

One explanation is the dark forest hypothesis; Leaky planets get attacked by space pirates.

germanautotom | a day ago

Eagerly awaiting our space pirates

OpalFanatic | a day ago

The problem with the dark forest hypothesis, is nobody would know to avoid transmissions unless they survive the consequences or witness someone else not surviving the consequences.

Zealousideal_Leg213 | a day ago

Right: either they think about it and figure it out and stay quiet, or they don't figure it out and they disappear. The forest is dark either way.

OpalFanatic | a day ago

This. Considering nothing can outrace a photon, they are the fastest possible communication method. Radio or microwaves being the most efficient for long range communication makes them still the most likely methods anyone is going to use.

Zealousideal_Leg213 | a day ago

Right. I was just pointing out that entanglement itself isn't a communication method.

Outrageous_Divide129 | a day ago

They dissipate over long distances

Pull-Billman | a day ago

At what point, distance-wise, would we stop being able to detect radio signals? Like if we were traveling away from earth.

Neamow | a day ago

All our existing radio broadcasts are indistinguishable from background noise barely outside the solar system, apart from highly directed ones like the Arecibo message.

lambsquatch | a day ago

What if they’re…anti radio signals!!! We’re looking for a tech they don’t use!!! Bum bum bummmmmmmm

Wurm42 | a day ago

The Dyson Sphere civilizations are smart enough to understand about the Dark Forest.

infiniflip | a day ago

It’s a cool theory and all, but it seems like a waste of resources to build the giant-Star-encompassing-sphere. If they’re truly advanced and intelligent, why not create their own source of energy to generate star power like a fusion reactor? Farming star power seems way less efficient when you could manipulate reality to harvest intrinsic energy.

Karumpus | a day ago

That was the entire point of Dyson’s original paper on the topic. It’s meant to be a big joke at the expense of SETI (which he perceived as useless funding because an advanced civilisation will probably only “leak out” any radio signals for maybe a century at most). So he took some random frequency in the infrared and came up with a BS argument to justify the same SETI-style search for infrared signatures; thus was born the Dyson sphere.

Unfortunately for Dyson, he didn’t write /s at the end of the paper, and everyone since then has considered it a legitimate proposal. But it isn’t, for the reason you just listed. Plus, the energy required to build a Dyson sphere would be so vast… you’d already have the energy production capabilities a Dyson sphere would give you!

infiniflip | a day ago

Thanks for the explanation! Dyson’s spheres would be like the pyramids of Giza in space. It shows off the creators enormous capabilities and riches. It’s flamboyant instead of practical.

Karumpus | 22 hours ago

… hmm, I guess I can’t refute that idea. In that case, though, surely you’d be a bit more flashy than a Dyson sphere? The pyramids were originally cased in polished limestone and capped with a pyramidion of gold. Maybe you’d have a Dyson sphere… coated in gold!

infiniflip | 10 hours ago

I’d build it out of platinum to make it extra rare and blingy!

jujubanzen | a day ago

You need energy and mass to make more energy. Where is the most energy and mass concentrated in any given solar system?

infiniflip | a day ago

In the intrinsic energy of subatomic particles that cannot be created or destroyed according to mass-energy equivalence and conservation of energy. That is the fundamental powerhouse of our reality. If you know how to manipulate subatomic particles, like creating fusion and fission reactions, then you don’t need excessive structures like a sphere around a star to harness something extremely powerful. Brains over brawn.

Jlocke98 | an hour ago

Yeah whatever energy source being used by UAPs is clearly more advanced than a Dyson sphere

MattGdr | a day ago

I’m sure they relied on fossil fuels and went extinct long before they created Dyson spheres.

Porkenstein | a day ago

Funny thing about this is that fossil fuels aren't an inevitability. The fact that we have them in such abundance is mostly a quirk of our planet's early ecologies.

Although this is one of the theories as to what the great filter is - access to fossil fuels. Earth might be unique in that it was able to industrialize like it did.

MattGdr | a day ago

Very true.

FaceDeer | 20 hours ago

There are other energy sources one could use to industrialize. The fact that we happened to use fossil fuels for it doesn't mean that's the only possible way to do it.

ReasonablyBadass | 19 hours ago

Aren't Dyson spheres super inefficient? 99,9% of a systems mass are in the star. Just letting it burn is a waste. Better built a Starlifter + Star Forge and transmute it into useful stuff and store excess hydrogen for controlled burns later.

EarthTrash | 17 hours ago

The proposition is that if Dyson spheres do exist, they will occupy a region of the H-R diagram no natural should be in. Looking for these objects only requires that we examine data from current and planned star surveys.

I am skeptical of anything involving Dyson spheres or technosignatures, but testable predictions are the bread and butter of science. We were going to look anyway. We might as well check.

Bikewer | 13 hours ago

It seemed to me that if you wanted to make the entire interior of a Dyson sphere livable, you’d need to develop artificial gravity…. Which would be another engineering leap. You could spin the thing and confine living space to the equatorial region…. Which would still give you lots of room. Use the rest of the interior for solar collection.

Key_Pace_2496 | 4 hours ago

Or... hear me out. They're just a very small subset of colder stars that we haven't encountered that often before. I mean it's not like there are literally trillions of stars out there or anything.

Practical-Cellist647 | a day ago

There probably isn't more than one advanced civilization per galaxy. Can't hurt to look I guess.

isamura | a day ago

And you think we’re it for this galaxy? Lol

Rudybus | a day ago

At this precise time? Earth's been around for 4 billion years, we've used radio for 100.

Civilizations could pop up on a million planets and we'd still probably not overlap.

Practical-Cellist647 | a day ago

Idk I read an article by a mathematician and it made sense lol

OutdatedMage | a day ago

I'm with you on that. It's amazing how big our galaxy is

jkurratt | a day ago

"can't hurt to look, they are well hidden any way"

BravestAgathian | 18 hours ago

I’m not sure we wanna find the mfs that be cooling stars and harvesting their power bruh. We can barely get 4G working outside of big cities.

random408net | a day ago

Cool Theory