In the 1960s, physicist and polymath Freeman Dyson proposed the idea of creating these eponymous spheres. He proposed that a sufficiently advanced society would have an insatiable need for space and energy. If they were industrious enough, they could solve both problems by dismantling a planet and turning it into a massive spherical shell. This sphere would encircle the star, providing a surface area equal to billions of planets and absorbing vast amounts of solar energy. Dyson calculated that a shell made from a Jupiter-mass planet could completely envelop the Sun at approximately the same orbit as Earth. However, gravity within the hollow shell is neutralized, meaning there is nothing binding the shell to the star. They are free to move in independent directions, meaning the star containing the Dyson sphere would soon simply smash into the shell, destroying it.
First proposed by physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960, the idea is that a sufficiently advanced civilization (at least a Type II civilization on the Kardashev scale) would be able to harness the energy of its star by constructing a kind of cocoon that could harness a large fraction of the star’s energy output. Over the years, the Dyson sphere concept has evolved to encompass a variety of potential designs, including rings, bubbles, and swarms (a constellation of satellites harvesting the star’s energy).
The basic idea is that technologically superior alien civilizations could build gigantic structures around their host stars or black holes to harness their immense energy and further develop their civilizations. The most extreme version of these megastructures would be a massive sphere enclosing an entire star, while more compact versions could include ring stations and swarms of giant mirrors.
Dyson spheres, hypothetical megastructures that advanced alien civilizations could use to surround a star and harness its energy, suffer from a fatal flaw: they are catastrophically unstable. But now an engineer claims to have found a way to stabilize these structures—and it only requires two stars. In a paper published on January 29, 2025, in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, University of Glasgow engineer Colin MacInnes has found a way to theoretically stabilize a Dyson sphere. The secret is that it requires a system of at least two stars.
McInnes began by searching for any points within the binary star system where a stable Dyson sphere configuration could exist, where the sphere could remain in place and the gravitational forces acting on it would be uniform. He found one configuration where the sphere would encircle both stars. But this situation was only moderately stable and would likely face the same problem as the single-star case.
Another point of stability occurs when the sphere orbits independently, not orbiting any star. While this may be useful for space stations, it does not provide the same energy-capturing benefits as consuming a star.
An illustration of a Dyson sphere surrounding a star. Mark Ward/Stocktrek Images/Getty
But McInnes did find one stable and useful configuration. This is only possible in binary systems where one star is much smaller than the other. In this particular case, a Dyson sphere can encircle the smaller of the two stars. The motion of the smaller star acts as a gravitational anchor, keeping the Dyson sphere in the same orbit around the larger star, preventing a catastrophic collision.
There are several caveats, however. The smaller star must be no more than one-tenth the mass of its larger companion, otherwise the point of gravitational equilibrium will disappear. Furthermore, the sphere must be extremely light and thin compared to the two stars, otherwise its own gravitational influence will interfere with the system’s dynamics and disrupt its stability.
And of course, this analysis ignores any practical engineering considerations, such as the stresses and loads the sphere might experience, or how to build the thing in the first place.
While it’s unlikely that humans will build a Dyson sphere in the distant future, if ever, this research does help in the search for extraterrestrial civilizations. Presumably, a sufficiently advanced civilization would have reached the same conclusion even before building its Dyson sphere, so we shouldn’t look for them around isolated stars.
Instead, scientists could look for large, bright stars with a diffuse infrared companion—a telltale sign of heat escaping from the Dyson sphere surrounding the smaller star of the larger companion.
For over half a century, scientists have wondered whether searching for technosignatures similar to Dyson spheres belonging to advanced civilizations could help us detect intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Two studies in 2024 will analyze data from star-observing satellites to develop a framework for eliminating false positives or potential natural explanations in this search.
Each study found evidence that only a few of the millions of observed stars contain excess radiation consistent with potential Dyson spheres, and it cannot be readily explained by a natural phenomenon.
The search for extraterrestrial life has many forms: from searching for Earth-like planets to searching for stars with characteristics similar to the Sun to detecting alien signals. But for over 60 years, one type of extraterrestrial search has centered around the idea of the Dyson sphere.
Finding a star that meets all the criteria among the millions observed by projects like the Gaia satellite, the Wide-Area Infrared Survey (WASE), and the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) is even more challenging than looking for a needle in a haystack. But these two independent studies have risen to the challenge and found many compelling candidates.
The first study, led by PhD student Matias Suazo of Uppsala University (Sweden), is actually the second paper dedicated to the Hephaestus project, whose mission is described as “searching for extraterrestrial intelligence using indirect signs of astroengineering.” By analyzing optical and infrared data from the aforementioned satellites, the team developed a comprehensive method for analyzing the data and identifying potential Dyson spheres and their technosignatures. The results have been accepted for publication in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on May 6, 2024.
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“This structure will emit excess heat in the form of mid-infrared radiation, which, in addition to the degree of completion of the structure, will depend on its effective temperature,” Suazo and his colleagues write in the paper. “To identify potential Dyson sphere candidates, a special program was developed aimed at detecting sources exhibiting anomalous excesses of infrared radiation that cannot be attributed to any known natural source of such radiation.”
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This process included screening out candidates with nebular signatures (as they often yielded false positives), signal-to-noise ratio analysis, and hydrogen alpha particle studies, as well as a thorough analysis of many other known false-positive flags in the Gaia-WISE data. Starting with a staggering five million objects, this workflow narrowed that number down to just seven particularly interesting candidates.
“All sources are clear mid-infrared sources, with no obvious contaminants or signatures indicating a clear mid-infrared origin,” the paper states. However, the authors also noted that some natural causes could ultimately rule out even these high-profile candidates. “The presence of warm debris disks surrounding our candidates remains a plausible explanation for the infrared excess of our sources.”
At least seven stars in the Milky Way show signs of the potential presence of a hypothetical, highly advanced form of alien technology known as a Dyson sphere, scientists claim. While researchers cannot be completely certain that these stars are home to intelligent civilizations, they will undoubtedly attract the interest of scientists searching for extraterrestrial life in space.
All seven stars identified in the study belong to the class of M dwarfs—main-sequence stars smaller and dimmer than the Sun. As the researchers write in the study, all of them are located within 1,000 light-years of Earth.
Dyson sphere. capnhack
A second study, conducted by the International School for Advanced Studies in Italy, simultaneously found 53 candidate stars with excess mid-infrared measurements, but in both cases it is possible that extreme debris disks that form after planetary collisions could also explain these results.
When exploring explanations for cosmic phenomena as theoretical as Dyson spheres, it’s important to remember that all less impressive explanations must be ruled out before we can move on to aliens. David Hogg, co-author of the second study, told New Scientist that the most likely explanation remains natural. “It could be something that happens very rarely, like a collision between two planets, creating a huge amount of material.”
As the authors noted, existing scientific theories do not explain the excess radiation detected in the stars. Astronomers plan to study these objects with more powerful telescopes to confirm the presence of this hypothetical sign of alien life.
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