The idea of Dyson Sphere’s has been around for decades. When Freeman Dyson explored the concept he acknowledged that they may not be a physical sphere but could be a swarm of satellites in a spherical configuration around a star. The challenge with a solid sphere is that its orbit will not be stable leading to its destruction. A new paper casts a new view on that though and proposes a way that a rigid sphere could be stable after all. The idea suggests that a binary star system, where the mass ratio between the two objects is small, the sphere may be stable.
Could We Detect Advanced Civilisations by their Industrial Pollution? Probably Not.

The hunt for aliens goes hand in hand with the hunt for habitable planets. Astronomers are on the hunt for exoplanets with atmospheric chemicals that could be a sign of an advanced civilisation. These chemicals, known as technosignatures are found on Earth and are the result of burning fossil fuels. A team of researchers have been exploring Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and whether they could detect them.
Continue reading “Could We Detect Advanced Civilisations by their Industrial Pollution? Probably Not.”We Could Search for Aliens Harvesting Energy from their Pet Black Hole
Of all the unanswered questions in modern science, perhaps the most talked about is whether we are alone in the Universe. A new paper looks at another way we might be able to detect advanced civilisations and at its centre is the need for energy! The more advanced a civilisation becomes, the greater their need for energy and one of the most efficient ways, according to current theories, is to harness the energy from an actively feeding black hole. The paper suggests a civilisation feeding matter into a black hole could harvest energy from it, more excitingly perhaps, the process could be detectable within 17,000 light years!
New Technique for Spotting Dyson Rings Unveiled.

Dyson spheres and rings have always held a special fascination for me. The concept is simple, build a great big structure either as a sphere or ring to harness the energy from a star. Dyson rings are far more simple and feasible to construct and in a recent paper, a team of scientists explore how we might detect them by analysing the light from distant stars. The team suggests they might be able to detect Dyson rings around pulsars using their new technique.
Continue reading “New Technique for Spotting Dyson Rings Unveiled.”Will Advanced Civilizations Build Habitable Planets or Dyson Spheres

If there are alien civilizations in the Universe, some of them could be super advanced. So advanced that they can rip apart planets and create vast shells surrounding a star to capture all its energy. These Dyson spheres should be detectable by modern telescopes. Occasionally astronomers find an object that resembles such an alien megastructure, but so far, they’ve all turned out to be natural objects. As best we can tell, there are no Dyson spheres out there.
Continue reading “Will Advanced Civilizations Build Habitable Planets or Dyson Spheres”Are Claims of Alien Visitation Causing a Problem to Society?
I’ve been an avid stargazer for a fair few decades now and not once have I seen anything that makes me believe we are being visited by aliens! My own experiences aside, there’s no evidence of alien visitations but it seems much of the population believes anything that they cannot immediately identify in the sky MUST be ailens. A new paper suggests there are costs associated with increasing claims such as disctractions to government programs and background noise that hampers science communication. How on Earth should we deal with it? If debunking doesn’t work, then maybe its time for a scientific investigation.
Continue reading “Are Claims of Alien Visitation Causing a Problem to Society?”That’s No Planet. Detecting Transiting Megastructures
One of the easiest ways to find exoplanets is using the transit method. It relies upon monitoring the brightness of a star which will then dim as a planet passes in front of it. It is of course possible that other objects could pass between us and a star; perhaps binary planets, tidally distorted planets, exocomets and, ready for it…. alien megastructures! A transit simulator has been created by a team of researchers and it can predict the brightness change from different transiting objects, even Dyson Swarms in construction.
Continue reading “That’s No Planet. Detecting Transiting Megastructures”There’s Another, More Boring Explanation for those Dyson Sphere Candidate Stars
Dyson Spheres have been a tantalising digression in the hunt for alien intelligence. Just recently seven stars have been identified as potential candidates with most of their radiation given off in the infrared wavelengths. Potentially this is the signature of heat from a matrix of spacecraft around the star but alas, a new paper has another slightly less exciting explanation; dust obscured galaxies.
Continue reading “There’s Another, More Boring Explanation for those Dyson Sphere Candidate Stars”Some Intelligent Civilizations Will Be Trapped on their Worlds

Evolution has produced a wondrously diverse variety of lifeforms here on Earth. It just so happens that talking primates with opposable thumbs rose to the top and are building a spacefaring civilization. And we’re land-dwellers. But what about other planets? If the dominant species on an ocean world builds a technological civilization of some sort, would they be able to escape their ocean home and explore space?
Continue reading “Some Intelligent Civilizations Will Be Trapped on their Worlds”We Could Snoop on Extraterrestrial Communications Networks
The conditions for life throughout the Universe are so plentiful that it seems reasonable to presume there must be extra-terrestrial civilizations in the galaxy. But if that’s true, where are they? The Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program and others have long sought to find signals from these civilizations, but so far there has been nothing conclusive. Part of the challenge is that we don’t know what the nature of an alien signal might be. It’s a bit like finding a needle in a haystack when you don’t know what the needle looks like. Fortunately, any alien civilization would still be bound by the same physical laws we are, and we can use that to consider what might be possible. One way to better our odds of finding something would be to focus not on a direct signal from a single world, but the broader echos of an interstellar network of signals.
Continue reading “We Could Snoop on Extraterrestrial Communications Networks”