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Get the Popular Science daily newsletter\ud83d\udca1<\/p>\n
Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use<\/a> and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy<\/a>. You may unsubscribe at any time.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n There are many ways to scour the stars for intelligent life<\/a>. You can search for radio signatures<\/a> whose repetitions suggest intentional design, or examine a planet that orbits its star in a so-called Goldilocks Zone<\/a> conducive for habitation. One of the wildest (but still hypothetically plausible) scenarios involves what\u2019s known as a Dyson sphere<\/a>.<\/p>\n Named after physicist Freeman Dyson, the idea hinges on an alien civilization so advanced that they invent a method to directly harness the energy of an entire star. Extraterrestrials could theoretically accomplish this feat in a number of ways, but the simplest approach would likely entail encasing a stellar object with orbital installations that absorb solar radiation, convert it into usable energy, and then re-emit that power back to the Dyson sphere\u2019s engineers.<\/p>\n While Dyson himself once described his original 1960 paper as \u201ca little joke<\/a>,\u201d he later conceded that the underlying technical details are \u201ccorrect and uncontroversial<\/a>.\u201d Despite the joke, many researchers today agree, and argue that searching for Dyson spheres is one of the easiest ways to identify extraterrestrial life.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, an ongoing cosmic survey called Project Hephaistos<\/a> at Sweden\u2019s Uppsala University has once again crossed off multiple candidates from their list of suspects. According to their findings detailed in two soon-to-be published studies<\/a>, a pair of faint, distant red dwarf stars aren\u2019t surrounded by high-tech alien energy harvesters. Although disappointing, the findings highlight the ongoing versatility of one of astronomy\u2019s most impressive tools\u2014the James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> (JWST or Webb).<\/p>\n Astronomers theorize that any functioning Dyson sphere will generate a technosignature in the form of waste heat that\u2019s emitted as excess mid-infrared radiation. Researchers including Uppsala University astrophysicist Andreas Korn<\/a> previously flagged multiple dwarf stars with \u201cunusual infrared properties that seem[ed] to resemble those expected for Dyson spheres.\u201d These were selected while employing the European Space Agency\u2019s Gaia satellite and NASA\u2019s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), with the candidates exhibiting unexpectedly low optical fluxes and higher infrared fluxes. The subject pool was vast\u2014around 1 million stars located within around 1,000 light-years of Earth.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the signature that we were looking for: a star that is a little bit too faint in the optical and has substantial amounts of waste heat in the infrared,\u201d Korn recently explained<\/a>.<\/p>\n The team ultimately determined their most promising options were two faint M-dwarf stars that are invisible to the naked eye here on Earth and about a few billion years old each. Researchers then used the JWST to gain a more focused look at each star. Sadly, neither ended up revealing themselves as an elusive Dyson sphere. In actuality, they are pretty standard M dwarfs whose energy is jumbled by background galaxies.<\/p>\n \u201cWISE gives us just a coarse image, and that\u2019s why the photons from the background galaxy and the M dwarfs were blended together so we couldn\u2019t tell them apart,\u201d explained Korn. \u201cBut with Webb, we can tell the two apart and conduct separate analyses of either the galaxy or the foreground M dwarf.\u201d<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time Project Hephaistos has encountered similar issues. As time goes on, it appears that many of their Dyson sphere candidates are obscured by background galaxies. That may not always be the case, however. Multiple proposed mid-infrared telescopes\u2014including the Giant Magellan Telescope<\/a>\u2014are scheduled to arrive by the 2030s. Until then, the hunt for Dyson spheres continues.<\/p>\n \t\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 2026 Popular Science Home of the Future Awards<\/p>\nWhat is a Dyson sphere?<\/h2>\n
Enter the Webb<\/h2>\n
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