Seven candidates for Dyson spheres discovered in the Milky Way? An interesting, albeit different, discovery

One of the things a highly advanced civilization would be expected to build is a massive structure to harness all the energy emanating from stars.Dyson ball(Dyson field). A Dyson sphere emits heat in the form of infrared radiation, so if a completed Dyson sphere were observed from a distance from Earth, it would be observed as a “star” emitting an excessive amount of infrared radiation.

Find Dyson BallsHephaestus Project (Project Hephaestus)” searched for Dyson spheres in about 5 million stars located relatively close to Earth. As a result, seven celestial objects were found that could not be ruled out as Dyson spheres.Of course, at this point it's likely just a natural object, and it's unlikely that we've actually found a Dyson sphere.However, this is still an interesting discovery because it means we have discovered a star with quite unusual properties.

■”مجال دايسون” الذي قد تصنعه حضارة متقدمة

كلما تطورت الحضارة، كلما زادت احتياجاتها من الطاقة. إن الحضارات الأكثر تطورًا بكثير من تلك الموجودة على الأرض سيتعين عليها في النهاية الاستفادة الكاملة من الطاقة المنبعثة من النجوم. ومن أجل امتصاص الطاقة المنبعثة من النجم دون إهدارها، من الضروري بناء هيكل ضخم يغطي معظم النجم. تمت تسمية هذه الهياكل العملاقة على اسم مؤيدها فريمان دايسون.كرة دايسون” يسمى(※).

*…ومع ذلك، فإن المفهوم الذي اقترحه فريمان دايسون في عام 1960 لم يكن الهيكل الكروي الذي نتخيله اليوم، ولكنه شيء مثل عدد لا يحصى من الأجزاء الصغيرة غير المتصلة التي تدور حول النجم. يرجى ملاحظة أن هذه صورة. استخدمت الورقة الأصلية عبارة «محيط حيوي اصطناعي يحيط بالنجم»، ولكن هذا خطأ حدث عندما تم الخلط بين الغلاف الحيوي والكرة.

لذا، حتى لو قامت حضارة متقدمة خارج كوكب الأرض ببناء كرة دايسون، فهل سيكون من الممكن التعرف عليها من خلال المراقبة من الأرض؟ على سبيل المثال، كرة دايسون ذات هيكل غلاف كروي متصل بالكامل أو هيكل يشبه الشريط تكون غير مستقرة ميكانيكيًا، لذلك من المتوقع أن تكون هناك فجوات في كرة دايسون. لهذا السبب، يمكن ملاحظة النجم الذي تحيط به كرة دايسون كنجم ذو فترة تباين غير طبيعية بسبب تسرب الضوء غير المنتظم عبر الفجوات. تم اكتشاف العديد من هذه النجوم، مثل نجم تابي (KIC 8462852)، ولكن من المعروف أنه يمكن تفسيرها بظواهر طبيعية أكثر شيوعًا، مثل شظايا جرم سماوي محطم.

مقالات لها صلة
・نظرية جديدة وراء التعتيم الغامض لـ “نجمة تابي”: هل يمكن أن يكون السبب هو قمر صناعي مقذوف من خارج المجموعة الشمسية؟ (19 سبتمبر 2019)

■هل اكتشف “مشروع هيفايستوس” 7 مرشحين لكرة دايسون؟

However, in principle, Dyson fields can also be detected using other methods. the “Hephaestus ProjectIt aims to use many of these methods to analyze astronomical observational data and explore the Dyson field. Hephaestus (Hephaestus) is the god of fire and blacksmithing in Greek mythology, who created armor for the gods.

Project Hephaestus is divided into the following three categories depending on the method of analysis and the celestial bodies targeted.

I. Exploring galaxies Most stars in the galaxy are surrounded by Dyson fields
II. Look for stars in the Milky Way that are almost completely covered by Dyson spheres
III. Searching for stars partially covered by Dyson spheres in the Milky Way

Among them, some exploration results of the first and third parts have already been announced. It turns out that the number of galaxies with most of their stars covered by Dyson balls, the target of I, is less than one in every 330 galaxies. Regarding “stars partially covered by Dyson spheres”, which is the subject of Part III, for example, in the case of Dyson spheres that cover about 90% of the whole, the number of stars present seems to be less than 1 in 50,000 stars. The probability that such galaxies and stars exist is low, and unfortunately a Dyson sphere has not been discovered yet.

Now, the Hephaestus Project has announced new observational results on Subject II, a star almost entirely covered by a Dyson sphere. This research analyzes observational data from projects such as Gaia, 2MASS, and WISE, all of which observe and catalog a large number of celestial objects.

If there was a Dyson ball almost completely surrounding the star, it would almost completely block the star's radiation. On the other hand, the energy conversion process always generates waste heat. Waste heat is generated according to the laws of thermodynamics, and no matter how advanced a civilization is, it is impossible to reduce waste heat to zero. Therefore, if you look at a Dyson sphere from a distance, it will appear as an astronomical object that appears abnormally bright only at infrared wavelengths, even though it is dark at other wavelengths.

However, Dyson Ball-like environments can also form naturally. The belts of dust and asteroids surrounding the star block some of the energy coming from the star, like a Dyson ball, and emit some of the received energy as infrared radiation. In addition, if unrelated objects such as galaxies or quasars interfere behind the star, the strong infrared radiation emanating from them may be mixed. The natural causes of this noise in Dyson Sphere research can be identified and eliminated by carefully analyzing the light spectrum and measuring the distance to the star.

In this research, we first automatically filtered nearly 5 million stars using several criteria and narrowed down the candidates to 368. Next, we manually examined each of the 368 candidates to see if they contained noise that could be explained by natural factors but had crept in Via filters. Results,A candidate for a celestial body might be a Dyson sphereIn the end, seven stars remained.The closest candidate to Earth found in this research is a star called Gaia DR3 3496509309189181184, located about 466 light-years from Earth.

■ Interesting discovery even if it's not a Dyson ball

Of course, this research alone cannot determine whether the seven candidate domains are Dyson domains.In fact, all seven balls are likely not Dyson balls.However, even if these seven balls were not Dyson balls, it would still be an interesting discovery.

The seven Dyson star candidates discovered this time are all M-type stars (red dwarfs), which are much lighter and fainter than the Sun. To rule out that it's not a Dyson ball, the most plausible explanation is that rock fragments of different sizes are orbiting the star. However, no such example has been found yet. The exact reason for this rarity is unknown.

The object discovered through this research may be a previously undiscovered M-type star surrounded by debris.If we make detailed observations based on this discovery, we will be able to conduct research to clarify why this is so rare.

However, additional observations are needed to confirm that the seven candidates are Dyson domains. Although the process will likely reveal that it is not a Dyson sphere, there is still a possibility that it is an astronomically interesting object.

source

• “Hephaestus Project(Uppsala University)
• Matías Suazo, et al. “Project Hephaestus – II. Dyson field candidates from Gaia DR3, 2MASS and WISE.” (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)
• Matías Suazo, et al. “Project Hephaestus – I. The upper bounds of Dyson's partial spheres in the Milky Way”. (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)
• Eric Zachrisson, et al. “SETI with Gaia: Observational signatures of almost complete Dyson fields”. (Astrophysical Journal)
• Eric Zachrisson, et al. “Extragalactic SETI: The Tully-Fisher Correlation as a Dysonian Astrogeometry Probe in Disk Galaxies”. (Astrophysical Journal)

Text / Riri Ayaka Editing / sorae editorial department