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Let's move the solar system - Stellar Engine

Ever thought of if we made contact with other intelligent life form , how are we gonna meet them physically with all the humans on earth?

Don't worry there is a solution , and it is "Stellar Engine".

Now what is a stellar engine?

Simply put it is a hypothetical megastructure which uses a star's energy to propel or move the star and as the star moves the other planets will also move due the gravity of the star.

The concept of Stellar engine was first introduced by Badescu and Cathcart.


There are three classes of stellar engines :


1.Class A - Shkadov thruster

One of the simplest examples of a stellar engine is the Shkadov thruster, or a Class A stellar engine. Such an engine is a stellar propulsion system, consisting of an enormous mirror/light sail—actually a massive type of solar statite large enough to classify as a megastructure—which would balance gravitational attraction towards and radiation pressure away from the star. Since the radiation pressure of the star would now be asymmetrical, i.e. more radiation is being emitted in one direction as compared to another, the 'excess' radiation pressure acts as net thrust, accelerating the star in the direction of the hovering statite. Such thrust and acceleration would be very slight, but such a system could be stable for millennia. Any planetary system attached to the star would be 'dragged' along by its parent star.



2.Class B stellar engine

A Class B stellar engine is a Dyson sphere—of whichever variant—built around the star, which uses the difference in temperature between the star and the interstellar medium to extract usable energy from the system, possibly using heat engines or photovoltaic cells. Unlike the Shkadov thruster, such a system is not propulsive. So this type of stellar engine can only be used for harvesting energy not for moving a planetary system.



3.Class C stellar engine


A Class C stellar engine, such as the Badescu-Cathcart engine, combines the two other classes, employing both the propulsive aspects of the Shkadov thruster, and the energy generating aspects of a Class B engine.

A Dyson shell with an inner surface partly covered by a mirror would be one incarnation of such a system (although it suffers from the same stabilization problems as a non-propulsive shell), as would be a Dyson swarm with a large statite mirror (see image above). A Dyson bubble variant is already a Shkadov thruster (provided that the arrangement of statite components is asymmetrical); adding energy extraction capability to the components seems an almost trivial extension.


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