Scientists have suggested that giant artificial space objects, known as spheres or Dyson swarms, are worth looking for around white dwarfs. Their presence in these compact remnants of stars can give out infrared radiation.
Dyson spheres around white dwarfs
Benjamin Zuckerman from the University of California suggested looking for spheres, rings and Dyson swarms near white dwarfs. These artificial objects the size of the orbits of planets may indicate the existence of extraterrestrial life, which we can find now.
Zuckerman’s logic is based on the fact that all white dwarfs were once stars similar in parameters to our Sun. So, it is quite possible that Earth-like planets existed in their orbits. And intelligent life could have arisen on them, which had technologies that allowed traveling in space and building objects in it.
Star passed the stage of a red giant and turned into a white dwarf. And intelligent beings could well wait out this event somewhere in the vicinity of the system. After that, disassemble the remnants of the planets that survived the disaster and build a new house out of them.
White dwarfs are better suited for this. These are very compact objects that emit a relatively large amount of energy. Therefore, it will be relatively easy for intelligent beings to build rings around them, which the star will supply with energy. At the same time, it will do this for hundreds of billions of years.
How to find a Dyson Sphere
Earlier, Zuckerman had already published an article in the Handbook of Exoplanets, in which he proved that if there were other civilizations in our Galaxy before, then they could survive the transformation of their native star into a red giant. During this process, their home planet died, but they would have survived.
A new article in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society is devoted to how to find among the famous white dwarfs those around which an extraterrestrial civilization has built a new home. According to Zuckerberg, infrared radiation can help. Dyson spheres or swarms should strongly scatter radiation, and it is in this part of the spectrum that an excess should be observed.
Interestingly, the WISE and Spitzer infrared orbital telescopes have indeed found quite a few white dwarfs that have abnormal infrared radiation. However, scientists explain it by the presence of cosmic dust near the star.
Sphere or Swarm
When Freeman Dyson first proposed the concept of a giant structure that would intercept all radiation from a star, it really was a solid sphere. Trillions of living beings could live on its surface, numerous seas and oceans could exist, and gravity would be provided by rotation.
However, experts on strength have long had doubts that the laws of physics make it possible to build such a large object. After all, to provide conditions similar to those on Earth, it must be the size of the Earth’s orbit.
And even in the case of compact stars such as white or red dwarfs, the size of the Dyson sphere would have to be measured in hundreds of millions of kilometers. Therefore, recently, people searching for these objects are increasingly presenting instead of a solid sphere a set of rings one inside the other, a lattice structure or even a swarm of thousands of relatively small stations.
According to phys.org
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