Questions tagged [dyson-spheres]

For questions about star-enclosing megastructures. For structures that merely form a ring or circular cloud around a star, use [dyson-ring].

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12 votes
8 answers
2k views

Minimising the environmental effects of my dyson brain

Many centuries from now, a race of advanced AI who now rule humanity, but who are aware that they themselves are leaderless, begin the construction of a huge dyson-sphere fuelled computer brain to ...
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4 votes
4 answers
133 views

Artificial Light Sources in a Dyson Sphere/Shell

I'm working on a story universe that takes place mostly/entirely within a multi-layered Dyson sphere. The story is not hard sci-fi, but I am trying to ensure the physics or sci-fi elements "feel&...
2 votes
3 answers
340 views

Can you destroy a dyson swarm?

The Swarm Let's suppose we have a dyson swarm with an orbital trajectory analogous to the star-link constellation over earth, although only over a relatively small belt (lets say about 20 degrees from ...
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4 votes
3 answers
370 views

What percentage of the Sun's energy can you capture with a Dyson swarm?

My secret society is planning to advance humanity as much as possible and they have decided the best way is to build a Dyson swarm. Still, they don't know how much power from the Sun they would be ...
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0 votes
1 answer
133 views

How large can individual Dyson segments be before they get torn apart by tidal forces or orbital variations?

Yet another follow up question in my Dyson sphere series. Assuming the arrays are orbiting at 1 AU, the distance between an inclination of 0.01 degrees is 26,109,754 meters, meaning that there must be ...
3 votes
4 answers
228 views

What's the point of building a Dyson sphere if you're going to mine everything in a stellar system?

This is a follow-up question to Building a Dyson sphere while preserving moons/other objects?. User @Goodies answered my question with opting to harvest nearby stars. The problem here is that ...
0 votes
3 answers
180 views

Is this scenario possible? How can it be done?-Dyson sphere replaced by gas giant star

Scenario: "...Regino is a gas giant approximately the size of Saturn, and three moons, Reo, Gei, and Tan orbit it. All three are small, rocky bodies a half to a quarter the size of Earth's moon. ...
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11 votes
7 answers
2k views

Building a Dyson sphere while preserving moons/other objects?

Humans want to build a Dyson sphere around the Sun. They have noticed that Ganymede's icy composition would be perfect for mining to get the icy resources needed to build the sphere, or Mercury could ...
13 votes
4 answers
2k views

Best star for a Dyson sphere?

Whether solid or a swarm, a problem that occurs to me long-term in building a dyson structure are damaging flares and magnetic storms from the host star. It seems like the absolute best option would ...
6 votes
4 answers
229 views

Can an average person's (2021 Earth) lifestyle requirements be satisfied with excess energy?

Assume we have a Dyson Sphere, ready to rumble. Also Assume that knowledge bearing robots are plentiful as well (apart from energy) who can do any task (from 3d printing a laptop to creating a house ...
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4 votes
1 answer
139 views

What environment do I need for gluonium entities to thrive in?

Gluons are the particles that hold quarks together. The way they do this allows them to hold each other together in the form of gluonium. Gluonium only appears at high temperatures such as those ...
1 vote
3 answers
114 views

Gravity at the interior poles inside a large spinning sphere?

From other answers I've determined that gravity on the interior of a large spinning sphere (like a Dyson Sphere) could create a desired gravity at the equator at the inner surface. But what would ...
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11 votes
3 answers
2k views

Could a dyson sphere survive a supernova?

So, a civilization built a massive Dyson Sphere around a supergiant star. As the star ages, it begins to fuse iron. At this point, the force of radiation pressure cannot prevent core collapse, and ...
1 vote
2 answers
141 views

When can I have my megastructures? [closed]

I'm building a science fiction setting. The present is just like ours. Some time in the middle of the 21st century, humanity invents technology that allows travel to nearby stars within months. By the ...
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12 votes
4 answers
2k views

Would the displacement of materials caused by creating a Dyson Swarm have an impact on Orbital Mechanics (the n-body problem)?

I'm learning about how to account for the fact that we can't really model (to a perfect degree of accuracy) an Orbital system with more than two bodies - I [very, very barely] understand this as the n-...
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1 vote
5 answers
241 views

How a Kardashev type 2 civilization with no FTL would conquer an analog of the Federation from *Star Trek*? [closed]

Let's say a Kardashev type 2 civilization composed of a dyson swarm discovers a galactic federation, likes what they see, and decides to take it. However the Kardashev type 2 civilization lacks FTL, ...
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7 votes
2 answers
170 views

Reality check: Could a diamagnetic gold shell around a planet exist?

Could a gold shell around a planet exist, suspended by a magnetic field (gold is diamagnetic), given the following constraints? A gold layer enveloping a planet, arbitrarily thin. Unspecified height, ...
6 votes
1 answer
257 views

What temperature would the surface of a Dyson sphere be

Assuming a Dyson sphere is absorbing all of the energy of the sun it surrounds, then eventually that energy will be dissipated into space, presumably by radiating it away with some equivalent black ...
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27 votes
13 answers
7k views

How might my futuristic interstellar civilisation have missed a Dyson swarm on their doorstep?

It's the future. The setting is about as "hard-ish sci-fi" as it is possible to be, with the one big exception of a viable FTL engine. Humans have began spreading out into the galaxy, colonising ...
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4 votes
3 answers
263 views

Would a Dyson sphere be useful as a means of power generation?

I have heard people (quite possibly on this site) say that by the time a civilization is able to make Dyson sphere it will be useless to build one for power and energy needs. So, would a civilization ...
10 votes
6 answers
5k views

How would a Dyson Swarm transmit energy to the Earth?

The Dyson Swarm is common in sci fi as an energy source, and sometimes also as a powerful weapon. As it is commonly understood, it harnesses the energy of the sun, which stores a vast amount of energy....
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9 votes
7 answers
286 views

What tech would aliens use to harvest/alter our star and why?

I'm trying to create a scenario where the local star is "quickly" (suddenly up to thousands of years) removed, dimmed with reduced output, destroyed (maybe), or otherwise fundamentally changed as to ...
4 votes
2 answers
568 views

Dyson Sphere only ever possible theoretically

Assume technology more advanced than current levels, let us theorise for this question that we are capable of reaching and if needed extracting material from any planet or moon / body in our solar ...
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13 votes
9 answers
6k views

How to tell a blackhole from a neutron star covered entirely by Dyson sphere painted in vantablack?

In a galaxy far far away... M6760 (I made it up) is an unusually massive neutron star billions of light years away and it is surrounded by a spherical Dyson sphere painted in new improved formula ...
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5 votes
2 answers
353 views

How would a Dyson Swarm affect the temperature and light reaching the earth?

So, I'm creating a world in a dystopia format and I'm curious on other peoples opinion about how they would think a fully enveloping Dyson Swarm would affect the earth's temperature. I want the swarm ...
1 vote
4 answers
472 views

What is a realistic based Situation in which a Dyson Sphere could be created?

I felt inspired, and I wanted to write about the future of our lives. Setting: If one had to guess, what year would we most likely be able to build a super-structure like a Dyson-Sphere around the ...
4 votes
4 answers
755 views

Where could materials to build a Dyson swarm come from?

Let's assume we want to build a Dyson swarm that collects over 90% of the energy from the sun and orbits between the Earth and the sun. Also assume that we want to get none of the resources to build ...
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37 votes
9 answers
9k views

What reason would an alien civilization have for building a Dyson Sphere (or Swarm) if cheap Nuclear fusion is available?

The Dyson Dilemma states that every civilization of a great enough development stage will want to capture all of the energy from its home star and surround it with a Dyson Swarm that uses solar panels ...
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3 votes
3 answers
4k views

What could exist inside and between the walls of a Dyson Sphere?

According to FutureTimeline.net, A Dyson sphere could be built around the solar system around the year 3100 when the world reach the Kardashev type 2 scale. This is what is written there about the ...
14 votes
6 answers
4k views

Inhabiting Mars versus going straight for a Dyson swarm

My question is as follows - let's assume our objective function is to have as many humans as possible living outside the confines of the Earth as soon as possible. For this, we need to provide those ...
7 votes
1 answer
116 views

How much does the ecosphere weigh?

So, we've gone off to another star system and decided to build a Dyson bubble--a continuous statite, supported by radiation pressure, surrounding a star--with a surface gravity of 1g to live on. Now, ...
-2 votes
4 answers
335 views

Why would god-like aliens experience boredom? [closed]

On planet Methuselah, the oldest planet in existence, there exists a race of beings that seem to be, in most definitions of the word, gods. They can form objects out of pure energy, have strength ...
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0 votes
3 answers
220 views

What should my Dyson Sphere be called [closed]

I have written out a Dyson Sphere world with four cities that surround four colossal oceans (each >16000000x the volume of jupiter). I've worked on the flora, fauna, government, pseudo-gravity and so ...
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1 vote
4 answers
568 views

Alternative to gravity inside a Dyson Sphere?

On the inside of a Dyson sphere there is effectively no gravity. Is there an alternative method to keep people on the inside surface from floating around? I know it could spin and that would keep ...
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1 vote
5 answers
403 views

Should my Dyson Sphere be bigger? (Climate/habitable zone)

My world is a 1AU radius, 12000km thick Dyson Sphere with 6 equally spaced holes, 4 filled with water. The two main problems I have are gravity and heat. This question concerns heat and how to stop ...
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0 votes
1 answer
168 views

Possibility of a dyson sphere-esque structure with earth physics? [duplicate]

I have an idea for a DS-like world setting mostly set after the year 4200. The Earth was destroyed around 2500 and humanity moved from earth to an asteroid best and built a giant dyson sphere to live ...
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4 votes
6 answers
590 views

How would gravity affect a structure that completely encircled the earth

If a circular structure could be built that would wrap around the entire earth, but was of a larger radius, would it 'float' above the earths surface or would it somehow fall onto the surface at some ...
0 votes
1 answer
265 views

Can an Earth like planet support life by building a Dyson Sphere across a White Dwarf or a Red Dwarf star? [closed]

Is it possible to depend on a white dwarf as our power source, provided that we harness 99% of energy? Can life be sustained? How it will change the climate and the seasons of earth if it is our ...
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2 votes
2 answers
253 views

Has realistic climate modelling been done for inverted Dyson spheres or similar?

While there are approaches to make a habitable Dyson sphere that are technically reasonable, I am curious about what the climate would be like. For simplicity, consider a scenario where a thick shell ...
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6 votes
3 answers
305 views

Would there be gravity on the plates of a Dyson swarm?

I've heard several schools of thought. From a hard science standpoint, could there be gravity on the habitable surface of a Dyson Swarm plate? I keep thinking no. But if the outer shell were to be ...
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4 votes
2 answers
264 views

Interstellar construction between star systems

Asked a similar question before but didn't think it through and mangled it. Anyway would it be possible to build a structure between two star systems? Basic scenario is that you have two stars ...
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0 votes
1 answer
559 views

Tiniest habitable dyson spheres

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away... There lived a great and powerful civilisation who built a dyson sphere around the smaller of two stars in a binary star system and built a habitable ...
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2 votes
2 answers
526 views

Would this "reverse Dyson sphere"/"light-bridge" idea work?

So the idea is some hyper advanced civilization has figured out a way to send multi generational ships through space to other planets. The ships are self contained living ecosystems with near perfect ...
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2 votes
5 answers
2k views

Logical reasons for Forgoing a Dyson Swarm

In my Universe, the Colonization efforts and collapse of Earth leads to the rise of organic populations, nations, and cultures all across the Solar-System. Every planet and moon with hydro-static ...
user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
253 views

Barycentric/Orbital stability of a Dyson Sphere and Central Star

Can a Dyson Sphere and a star inside of the Dyson Sphere, both have a "stable" orbit around the barycentre of a system where they are not the most massive objects? And/Or Can they both orbit together ...
2 votes
2 answers
432 views

Visibility of a Dyson ring/swarm

There have been several questions about the construction, operation and destruction of a Dyson sphere. I'm interested in something a bit less exciting: how far out can you still see it from? Assume ...
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-2 votes
2 answers
251 views

Viability of a Dyson Universe? [closed]

So going beyond the idea of a Dyson Sphere where could a Dyson Universe be possible? The Idea of a Dyson Universe is like a Dyson sphere with massive celestial engineering and construction in the ...
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11 votes
3 answers
655 views

When and how would a Dyson sphere civilization in a fantasy setting learn size and shape of the sphere?

Working with this question but with more of a fantasy bent, I was wondering how long it would take a civilization to learn/realize that they lived on the inside of a Dyson sphere (or hollow earth or ...
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20 votes
6 answers
6k views

Would building a Dyson sphere inside the Earth's orbit render our planet uninhabitable?

The year is 3030 and the robots (who have replaced humanity as the dominant intelligent beings on Earth) have decided to build a Dyson sphere around the sun. They're planning on disassembling Venus ...
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0 votes
1 answer
161 views

How could you protect a Dyson Shell? [closed]

As you may or not be aware, we have a wonderful bubble created by the Sun. This Heliosphere (or bubble) protects us from plasma and other debris coming at us from the interstellar medium. I have read ...
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