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Dyson spheres
Dec. 2nd, 2008 02:33 pmDyson spheres are cool. They're hypothetical future-scifi-engineering gone mad: a shell around a star to capture and use all it's energy.
Theoretically, they'd still radiate a little bit: they'd be big, cool blackbody emitters - leaking a little warmth out into space. A chap at FermiLab took the IRAS infra-red sky survey and analysed it for just such things (tip: BadAstronomy). He found just seventeen good candidates. Assuming their starting criteria are good, that's pretty rare. Still, every one of those could be a matrioskha brain crammed full of nested computronium, so don't lose heart.
The approach: that life = weird spectral characteristics = detectable, is groovy. I'm pinning my hopes on getting some visual spectra for extrasolar planets, though. When we find one with an atmospheric composition that's outside the adiabatic steady state (as Earth is, and Mars is not), then we've got something.
Theoretically, they'd still radiate a little bit: they'd be big, cool blackbody emitters - leaking a little warmth out into space. A chap at FermiLab took the IRAS infra-red sky survey and analysed it for just such things (tip: BadAstronomy). He found just seventeen good candidates. Assuming their starting criteria are good, that's pretty rare. Still, every one of those could be a matrioskha brain crammed full of nested computronium, so don't lose heart.
The approach: that life = weird spectral characteristics = detectable, is groovy. I'm pinning my hopes on getting some visual spectra for extrasolar planets, though. When we find one with an atmospheric composition that's outside the adiabatic steady state (as Earth is, and Mars is not), then we've got something.
