Are the wonders called Dyson Spheres really possible?

And if so, what are the obstacles? Time? Money? Resources?

Published in

Predict

6 min readAug 3, 2021

Enormous structure surrounding a star looking like a net — Photo by Vantazzy from Imgur.

Over time, humans have developed a habit of consuming huge amounts of energy to sustain their daily lives. Each year that amount grows and grows until that energy will become a resource lacking for our needs. But what if we could find a source where that problem would never occur?

Fortunately for us, that question has already been answered decades ago. The problem is we still lack the technology and resources. Why? Because the solution is many times (literally) bigger than our Sun and it’s way out of our league, for now. So then what is that solution you may ask (or not)? Well, it has a name and you probably already know it from the title. They are called Dyson Spheres.

What are Dyson Spheres?

The Dyson Sphere is a man-made megastructure that encompasses an entire star to capture its power output. In terms of advancement, Dyson Sphere could easily be on par with the discovery of fire for our ancestors. It would start the age of exploration and expansion on a scale we can’t even grasp right now. In other words, the Sun would become our gigantic battery for us to use for eternity (almost) and with that much power, traveling outward into space wouldn't be science fiction anymore.

What could it look like?

The most popular design would be a giant solid shell enveloping the Sun but that probably isn’t the way to go since its large rigid body would be vulnerable to impacts from space rocks. That way it would shatter, drift and collapse straight into the Sun. The more viable option might be a Dyson swarm which is an enormous set of orbiting panels that collects the Sun’s power like a solar panel would do but are way more efficient due to its proximity to the star.

Dyson swarm. Photo by Ashkan Ghaffari from Dreamstime.

How much would it cost, material-wise?

Let’s say one of these panels is 1 square kilometer and we need around 30 quadrillions of these to be able to surround the Sun. Even if we made them as light as possible, we would need at least 100 quintillion tons of material. The biggest problem is we would need an insane amount of energy to be able to put the parts together and then have them delivered to their positions around the Sun. On top of all that we would need to have a permanent space infrastructure to start the building. The panels couldn’t be made here on Earth since it’s very far away and it would cost a lot more materials and time. Let’s assume our future generations found a way for all of these, the amount of raw materials needed to build is not enough for the Earth to provide. They will have to largely disassemble a whole planet (or more) with the best candidate being Mercury considering it’s the closest planet from the Sun and it’s rich in metal. We will need to make them durable, minimal repairs, or self-sustainable if we ever want to achieve something of that scale and also make them as cheap as possible.

The science behind it, what makes it work?

We mostly all know how solar panels work. When the Sun shines onto a solar panel, the energy from the sunlight is absorbed. Then this energy creates electrical charges that move in response to an internal electrical field causing electricity to flow. Of course, the closest you are to the star, the more efficient the solar panel will become since its absorption will be many times greater. These panels (from the Dyson swarm), if we ever make them work, will most likely be made of enormous mirrors which will refocus sunlight to central collecting stations like in concentrated solar power on our home planet. To build them and launch them efficiently they must be incredibly light and bound to some sort of supports to make them stable.

How long until they’re here?

So we established how important they are, how they look, how they cost, and how they work. The big question is when? We, humans, are very impatient and that kind of technology is quite a sight to see but sadly no one alive will be able to observe the megastructure or anyone in 10 generations after us for that matter. We assume that kind of technology is achievable only if a civilization is at least a type 2 on the Kardashev scale. It is said that to become a type 2 civilization, we need to have complete control over our solar system. It means every single planet, every rock, and of course the Sun. But we will, in a few thousand years if we manage to survive over our stupid behaviors.

Freeman John Dyson

Freeman John Dyson, the man and only, born the 15 December 1923 in England, is a British or was since he died last year (28 February 2020) is the one who proposed in 1960 the idea of a megastructure able to harness the Sun like a battery. Thanks to him, we hope to achieve greatness in building this Dyson Sphere. He was known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, and many many more. He also proposed in 1963 something unrelated to Dyson Sphere but quite interesting in my opinion. He proposed we use comets, these lumps of ice and organic chemicals that periodically orbit the Sun — to serve as nurseries for genetically altered trees that could grow. In the absence of gravity, these would release oxygen from their roots to sustain human life. As I said, nothing associated with Dyson Sphere but it just shows how much Freeman was a machine of ideas.

Fun story about Dyson Spheres

In recent years, astronomers have observed many stars, one of them could have potentially be surrounded by a Dyson Sphere made by an unknown advanced civilization. This star they found, labeled in scientific terms — KIC 8462852 or more popularly called Tabby’s star was emitting a strange light. Because of this, they thought they were dealing with a Sphere enveloping it. That idea was since discarded but it’s still quite interesting to think about the chances of it being the case.

So, are they possible?

Kind of, but they require an absurd amount of thinking, raw materials, and energy. It’s quite ironic actually, the energy we would need to make a Dyson Sphere is almost equivalent to the energy we would output with the Dyson Sphere at the end of the day. Also, this is an answer which could mean nothing in the future, we could have found multiple ways of getting around these problems and found many solutions which we didn’t think of right now. But who knows, maybe technology will become so advance even sooner than we thought that this mega project could become reality in a couple of centuries, I doubt but again who knows.

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