What Makes A Civilization Great: An Overview of the Dyson Sphere
By Ashfaq Ali M S
Cosmofluencer (Season 2)
The success of a species depends on its population and distribution. But how is the success of a civilization judged? Any civilization, to be characterized as successful for its particular age, must transcend the present notion of greatness. The great Mesopotamian civilization earned its title as ‘the cradle of civilization’ for building cities, birthing language, and recording history, feats no human civilization had accomplished before them. But in the modern world, where the entire globe is one single civilization, how can humans transcend into a higher dimension of greatness? This can only be done by conquering something untouched by any human before, that is, making the journey from a global civilization to a solar civilization and, eventually, to an interstellar civilization.
The first step to becoming a solar civilization is to solve the energy crisis problem.
In 1960, a physicist named Freeman Dyson proposed an idea to harvest energy from a star. But humans have been using solar energy since the 7th century BC! What’s new about Dyson’s idea? It is the possibility of harvesting all the energy a star radiates.
Just like the birth of any great idea, Dyson’s idea was inspired by science fiction from a novel named Star Maker. Dyson argued that as an extraterrestrial species’ supply of energy increases, it would eventually lead them to harvest the energy from a star in its entirety.
A theoretical instrument called a Dyson Sphere, which covers the entire star, not necessarily as a monolithic solid structure, harvests the energy output of the star, thus leading the host civilization to an infinite amount of energy! If human civilization is able to somehow make a practical working Dyson Sphere for any star, it would open gates to a new era, an era of space explorations and interstellar travels, making humans a Type II , or possibly a Type III civilization!
The idea presents another possibility. A working Dyson Sphere already exists somewhere in the universe. Extraterrestrial life, more successful than human civilization, is already running on the power of the stars! If this is true, it is our duty as a civilization aiming for greatness to find these marvels of engineering. But how? How can we differentiate between a natural astrophysical phenomenon and an artificial machine?
Since the Dyson Sphere covers up the star, the light from the star cannot reach us. At least not completely. But since the star still emits energy, the infrared radiation rejected from the Dyson Sphere as heat can be observed using sensors. Since infrared radiation can be caused by more than just Dyson Spheres in interstellar space, in order to conclude the finding to be a Dyson Sphere, the presence of an under-luminous star is necessary.
And even though finding such a signal isn’t a conclusive sign of extraterrestrial life, since it is only implied, the discovery of such an object in outer space would be considered instrumental in the further development of humanity’s journey through space.
Conclusion
The theoretical model of the Dyson Sphere and the research based on it can answer many questions: is the concept of infinite energy viable, and how will humanity treat it? Is there life outside of Earth? If so, what would result from the merging of extraterrestrial and human lives?
It also opens up new arenas for humans to conquer as every one of us goes from a global citizen to becoming a universal citizen.
Becoming an interstellar civilization would make us the Modern Mesopotamia. The cradle grows into a crib as civilization evolves from infancy to childhood.
Reference
Dyson Spheres: Jason T. Wright, Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds and Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Centerm, 525 Davey Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA, 16802, USA
Submitted to and accepted by the Serbian Astronomical Journal