Listen, I know that the government has said there is alien life out there, but for the rest of us, I think we’d really like to see it with our own eyes.
And not just because we secretly want someone to take us away from all of this.
Ahem.
Now, scientists say they’ve identified seven star systems that seem to have really good potential for harboring alien life.
The reason they think this is because of a thing called a Dyson sphere – a hypothetical megastructure an alien civilization could build around a star or black hole to capture most of its power in the form of radiation.
The concept was first proposed by Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist who believed it could take on different shapes and structures.
That was in 1960, and since we’ve yet to discover an intelligent alien civilization, it remains purely theoretical.
If these megastructures do exist, though, they should be visible due to the amount of infrared radiation released as the star heats the structure up.
Researchers on a recent study created a computer program to hunt for those “infrared excess emissions” (IEEs) in our galaxy, and say they found seven strong candidates.
Found by analyzing observations from the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite, the seven planets are all M-dwarf stars -smaller and dimmer than our sun.
They’re not claiming these planets are definitely surrounded by Dyson spheres, merely that, based on what they’ve observed, they’re good candidates.
“There are several natural explanations for the infrared excess in literature, but none of them clearly explains such a phenomenon in the candidates, especially given that all are M dwarfs.”
Coauthor and NYU physics professor David Hogg thinks there are likely additional factors at play.
“It might be something that happens very rarely, like if two planets collide and produce an enormous amount of material. I think it’s most likely to be a natural phenomenon.”
So while they can’t rule these in as being Dyson spheres, they also can’t rule them out, either, and they hope that they can use the James Webb to search more closely in the future.
“Either we’ll rule them all out and say Dyson spheres are quite rare and very hard to find, or they’ll hang around as candidates and we’ll study the heck out of them.”
Basically, you don’t have to give up on your dreams of being captured by aliens.
At least, not yet.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about why we should be worried about the leak in the bottom of the ocean.