* Astronomy

The Best Way to Find Aliens: Look for Their Solar Power Plants

In 1960, mathematician, physicist, and all-around genius Freeman Dyson predicted that every civilisation in the Universe eventually runs out of energy on its home planet, provided it survives long enough to do so. Dyson argued that this event constitutes a major hurdle in a civilisation's evolution, and that all those who leap over it do so in precisely the same way: they build a massive collector of starlight, a shell of solar panels to surround their home star. Astronomers have taken to calling these theoretical megastructures Dyson Spheres. Dyson's insight may seem like nothing more than a thought experiment, but if his hypothesis is sound, it has a striking implication: if you want to find advanced alien civilisations, you should look for signs of Dyson Spheres.
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