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What is a Dyson sphere? How much energy can we harvest through it?

 A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output. The concept is a thought experiment that attempts to explain how a spacefaring civilization would meet its energy requirements once those requirements exceed what can be generated from the home planet's resources alone. Because only a tiny fraction of a star's energy emissions reaches the surface of any orbiting planet, building structures encircling a star would enable a civilization to harvest far more energy.



The concept was later popularized by Freeman Dyson in his 1960 paper "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation". Dyson speculated that such structures would be the logical consequence of the escalating energy needs of a technological civilization and would be a necessity for its long-term survival. He proposed that searching for such structures could lead to the detection of advanced, intelligent extraterrestrial life. Different types of Dyson spheres and their energy-harvesting ability would correspond to levels of technological advancement on the Kardashev scale.


Variants of Dyson sphere


  1. Dyson swarm



The variant closest to Dyson's original conception is the "Dyson swarm". It consists of a large number of independent constructs (usually solar power satellites and space habitats) orbiting in a dense formation around the star. This construction approach has advantages: components could be sized appropriately, and it can be constructed incrementally. Various forms of wireless energy transfer could be used to transfer energy between swarm components and a planet.


2. Dyson Bubble


A second type of Dyson sphere is the "Dyson bubble". It would be similar to a Dyson swarm, composed of many independent constructs and likewise could be constructed incrementally.

Unlike the Dyson swarm, the constructs making it up are not in orbit around the star, but would be statites—satellites suspended by use of enormous light sails using radiation pressure to counteract the star's pull of gravity. Such constructs would not be in danger of collision or of eclipsing one another; they would be totally stationary with regard to the star, and independent of one another. Because the ratio of radiation pressure to the force of gravity from a star is constant regardless of the distance (provided the satellite has an unobstructed line-of-sight to the surface of its star), such satellites could also vary their distance from their central star.


3. Dyson shell


The variant of the Dyson sphere most often depicted in fiction is the "Dyson shell": a uniform solid shell of matter around the star. Such a structure would completely alter the emissions of the central star, and would intercept 100% of the star's energy output. Such a structure would also provide an immense surface that many envision would be used for habitation, if the surface could be made habitable.

A spherical shell Dyson sphere in the Solar System with a radius of one astronomical unit, so that the interior surface would receive the same amount of sunlight as Earth does per unit solid angle, would have a surface area of approximately 2.8×1017 km2 (1.1×1017 sq mi), or about 550 million times the surface area of Earth. This would intercept the full 384.6 yottawatts (3.846 × 1026 watts) of the Sun's output. Non-shell designs would intercept less, but the shell variant represents the maximum possible energy captured for the Solar System at this point of the Sun's evolution. This is approximately 33 trillion times the power consumption of humanity in 1998, which was 12 terawatts.


The problem with this megastructure is that if we started building it with today's technology we would still not be able to finish it in hundreds of years , as it would require material more than present on earth so we would have to mine other planets in our solar system which would not be an easy task and then to deploy them in right place . So simply with today's technology its not possible to build a Dyson sphere. But just imagine that what we could do with that amount of energy , it take humanity on a different level of advancement that nobody has ever thought of.


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