Si los recientes esfuerzos que la NASA realiza para construir un motor capaz de realizar la propulsión warp, no son más que un mero espejo de la imaginación y la ciencia ficción. ¿Qué sentido tiene que el Departamento de Astrofísica de Penn investigue acerca de la existencia de las Esferas Dyson?.
Según el equipo de la Penn State , algunas inteligencias serían capaces de crear esferas artificiales lo suficientemente grandes como para albergar dentro de ellas un sistema planetario completo. Tal es el caso de las esferas Dyson, que curiosamente coinciden con el tamaño de algunos objetos avistados por satélites tales como SOHO-LASCO y que también se han denominado aetherofactos. Dichos objetos, han sido denominados Oficialmente Esferas Dyson, en honor a la teoría del físico Freeman Dyson que en 1960 fue uno de los artífices de la búsqueda de Inteligencia Extraterrestre. Tal y como la teoría de Dyson refiere, dichas esferas serían objetos oscuros de tamaño superior a la órbita de la Tierra y construidos al rededor de la órbita de una estrella. Estos objetos podrían tomar y generar energía de la estrella y albergar vida dentro de forma indefinida, alimentándose de la energía de la estrella de secuencia principal. Igualmente tendrían autonomía para poder traspasar la estrella y migrar hacia otro sistema estelar utilizando esa misma energía.
Aunque el mismo Dyson concluyó hace años que su teoría era ridícula en base a los conocimientos de su época, ya que la construcción de dichas esferas implicaría la generación de enormes cantidades de energía, actualmente el joven profesor Jason Wright y su equipo del Departamento Estatal de Astronomía y Astrofísica, están utilizando el (WISE) s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer para poner a prueba la teoría de Dyson en el marco de la búsqueda de Inteligencia Extraterrestre. Lo cierto es que las esferas Dyson constituyen objetos de interés indudable para la astrofísica utilizando la tecnología de detección infrarroja del WISE.
El Equipo del Penn State fue constituido por la aplicación de Fondos con cargo a la Fundación John Templeton con cargo al programa «Nuevas Fronteras » con el objeto de determinar si existen otras civilizaciones inteligentes en nuestro vecindario estelar. Ciertamente si Wright y su equipo son capaces de encontrar evidencias aetherofactales o Esferas Dyson, cabría concluir que oficialmente estaríamos hablando de evidencias definitivas de la Inteligencia extraterrestre.
Curiosamente, hasta hace poco se cuestionaba en paralelo la existencia de las esferas Dyson, mientras otros científicos fotografiaban en directo estas esferas denominadas aetherofactos en las inmediaciones del sol , gracias a satélites como LASCO-SOHO o STEREO.
La misión del equipo será determinar de una vez por todas su existencia.
Fuentes:
Dyson Paper 1960 (Reproducimos seguidamente el contenido).
Shells Around Suns May Have Been Built
Science News Letter, June 18, 1960, page 389, Astronomy
Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation
Freeman John Dyson, Science, Vol. 131, June 3, 1960, pp. 1667-1668.If the foregoing argument is accepted, then the search for extraterrestrial intelligent beings should not be confined to the neighborhood of visible stars. The most likely habitat for such beings would be a dark object, having a size comparable with the Earth’s orbit, and a surface temperature of 200 deg. to 300 deg. K. Such a dark object would be radiating as copiously as the star which is hidden inside it, but the radiation would be in the far infrared, around 10 microns wavelength.
It happens that the earth’s atmosphere is transparent to radiation within the wavelength in the range from 8 to 12 microns. It is therefore feasible to search for «infrared stars» in this range of wavelengths, using existing telescopes on the earth’s surface. Radiation in this range from Mars and Venus has not only been detected but has been spectroscopically analyzed in some detail [3].
I propose then that a search for point sources of infrared radiation be attempted, either independently or in conjunction with the search for artificial radio emissions. A scan of the entire sky for objects down to the 5th or 6th magnitude would be desirable, but is probably beyond the capability of existing techniques of detection. If an undirected scan is impossible, it would be worthwhile as a preliminary measure to look for anomalously intense radiation in the 10-micron range associated with visible stars. Such radiation might be seen in the neighborhood of a visible star under either of two conditions. A race of intelligent beings might be unable to exploit fully the energy radiated by their star because an insufficiency of accessible matter, or they might live in an artificial biosphere surrounding one star of a multiple system in which one or more component stars are unsuitable for exploitation and would still be visible to us. It is impossible to guess the probability that either of these circumstances would arise for a particular race of extraterrestrial intelligent beings. But it is reasonable to begin the search for infrared radiation of artificial origin by looking in the direction of nearby visible stars, and especially in the direction of stars which are known to be binaries with visible companions.
References
- G. Cocconi and P. Morrison, Nature, Vol. 184, 1959, pp. 844-846.
- Science, Vol. 131, April 29, 1960, page 1303.
- Astrophysics Journal, Vol. 31, 1960, pp. 459, 470.
Science Vol. 132, July 22, 1960, pp. 250-253.
Letters and Response
Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared RadiationIt is unfortunate that Dyson’s suggestion [Vol. 131, 1960, page 1667] as to how intelligent beings might survive after reaching «the limits set by Malthusian principles» does not do justice to the intelligence of these beings by explaining how they would overcome some of the obstacles which, at first sight, would seem to militate against their curious way of life.
Dyson’s report describes a uniformly thick shell of fluid with a thickness of a meter or two and a radius twice the earth’s distance from the sun. The shell is said to revolve around the central star, which implies that the material revolves as a whole. Presumably the material of the shell must be enclosed on both surfaces by transparent plastic sheaths of similar constructions, for self-gravitation cannot be expected to make the material cohere. However it is not conceivable that it would be possible to quarry from the material of a planet like Jupiter sufficient structural steel to keep the shell rigid against the shear forces and those that would tend to move material towards the equatorial plane.
Therefore it must be assumed that radiation pressure must play a part in supporting the shell, so that its form will be that of an oblate spheroid rather than a sphere. For example, material at the poles of revolution of the shell would be supported entirely by radiation pressure, so that the polar radius of the shell would necessarily be less than the equatorial radius. However, a cursory calculation will show that this would be possible only at a distance from the central star comparable to but less than the radius of the sun.
Beings of lesser intelligence, not having discovered the appropriate laws of physics, might therefore seek some other distribution of their dismantled Jupiter that would have more intrinsic stability – for example, a torus lying in a plane perpendicular to the axis of its own rotation. The mass of Jupiter distributed in this way would yield a torus whose cross-sectional area was comparable with that of the moon, but unfortunately the flux of stellar radiation would be reduced by a factor of 109.
With conventional laws of physics, however, as Laplace was the first to show, even this arrangement would not be stable, and it is to be expected that the material of the torus would coalesce into one or more planetary objects. This suggests that the present state of intelligence, the dispersal of Jupiter into a thin shell about the sun would not be an effective means of escaping the consequences of continued population growth but that it might be an experiment with important bearing on various theories of origin of the solar system. It would, for example, be interesting to see whether the outcome of the experiment was the recreation of Jupiter or the creation of a number of asteroids.
Another point is that a search for infrared stars would be valuable even in conventional science for the light it might throw on the evolution of stars which are very young or very small as compared with the sun.
John Maddox
Washington Post
Washington, D.C.
Freeman Dyson’s report suggesting that intelligent life elsewhere in the universe may be detected by looking for sources of infrared radiation was delightful. However, as an old science-fiction hand, I feel obliged to sound a cautionary note to the scientists. Or am I merely to dense to recognize a satire?
The basis of Dyson’s argument is that an industrial culture may eventually occupy an artificial biosphere completely surrounding its sun, thus maximizing the territory and energy available for population expansion «to the limits set by Malthusian principles. The mass of Jupiter could be converted into a «spherical shell revolving around the sun at twice the Earth’s distance from it,» utilizing incident solar radiation which would be reradiated into space in the 10-micron band.
Offhand, I should think rotational and gravitational stresses alone would rule out such a structure of such dimensions. But since it is admittedly dangerous to assert that anything is impossible, I shall confine myself to the questions of economics. Even Dyson intimates that the project would take several thousand years to complete; he calculates the energy required as equal to the sun’s total output for eight centuries, and one does have to eat meanwhile. And meanwhile, too, the population growth necessitating this project will presumably continue. As Hauser remarks in the same issue [Science, Vol. 131, 1960, page 1642], at our present-day rate of increase we would reach «a population of one person per square foot of the land surface of the earth in less than 800 years. Thus, the economic surplus needed for the biosphere project would be consumed long before the latter got well started.
If we assume a ratio of population increase to industrial expansion low enough so that this contretemps does not occur, we must ask ourselves how any intelligent species could be induced to patiently to continue this enormous task, millennium after millennium. True, our human history contains epochs of grandiose and useless construction, such as the pyramid building of Egypt, but they never lasted very long. Any revolutionist who promised relief from the crushing burden of the biosphere project would be well received! He could doubtless get support for some or other population-control program; those who demurred would be martyred by exasperated taxpayers, or the equivalent thereof.
Of course, the entire species might by advanced psychological techniques, be conditioned into such an antlike state that its government could never be overthrown, or break down from internal stresses, or evolve into something new. But given subjects as meek as this, and nor reason to breed vast armies (for only a well-established world government could seriously entertain these ideas in the first place), the masters could regulate birth and death by fiat. Thus, the population would have stabilized at some rational figure and projects such as Dyson’s would never be indicated.
In short, uncontrolled population growth will make the construction of artificial biospheres impossible, and control will make them unnecessary. So astronomical discovery of infrared sources won’t prove anything about the inhabitants of other planets.
Paul Anderson
3 Las Palomas Road
Orinda, California
The suggestion by Freeman J. Dyson for investigating solar far-infrared radiation as one way to detect extraterrestrial intelligence sounds quite practical and sensible.
This leads me to suspect that if Dyson’s assumption is correct – that intelligent beings exist of a far higher order technological achievement than our own – it would be well – nigh impossible for such beings not to have detected us.
Eugene A. Sloane
Air Engineering
Detroit, Michigan
RESPONSE: In reply to Maddox, Anderson and Sloane, I would only like to add the following points, which were omitted from my earlier communication.
- A solid shell or ring surrounding a star is mechanically impossible. The form of «biosphere» which I envisaged consists of a loose collection or swarm of objects traveling on independent orbits around the star. The size and shape of the individual objects would be chosen to suit the inhabitants. I did not indulge in speculations concerning the constructional details of the biosphere, since the expected emission of infrared radiation is independent of such details.
- It is a question of taste whether one believes that a stabilization of population and industry is more likely to occur close to the Malthusian limit or far below that limit. My personal belief is that only a rigid «police state» would likely to stabilize itself far below the Malthusian limit. I consider that an open society would be likely to expand by proliferation of the «city-states» each pursuing an independent orbit in space. Such an expansion need not be planned or dictatorially imposed; unless it were forcibly stopped it would result in the gradual emergence of an artificial biosphere of the kind I have suggested. This argument is admittedly anthropomorphic, and I resent it in full knowledge that the concepts of «police state» and «open society» are probably meaningless outside our own species.
- The discovery of an intense point source of infrared radiation would not by itself imply that extraterrestrial intelligence has been found. On the contrary, one of the strongest reasons for conducting a search for such sources is that many new types of natural astronomical objects might be discovered.
Freeman J. Dyson
Institute for Advanced Study
Princeton, New Jersey
Gentileza de The Register para StarViewerTeam International 2012.
Un excelente blog! En la serie de Star Trek Next Generation … cubrían una «Esfera Dyson» en su show llamado «Relics»
Y que creen que era la ESTRELLA DE LA MUERTE en la película «La Guerra de las Galaxias» Star Wars????
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1516343-descubren-un-planeta-formado-de-diamantes