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What would it be like for an ant if we were to give it an angle of vision so that it could see through the biggest of buildings? How would it feel to be in an ocean with infinite depth and endless dimensions!!
All of this is hypothetical, yet the very thought of it rushes adrenaline into the bloodstream.
What if we tell you that this might just be possible someday?
A structure as enormous as to engulf a complete star within, yes, you read that right, a complete star of the universe. Maybe our very own Sun, the ultimate power source for everything. There is a dire need to improve the current energy production and efficiency. It is of paramount importance. Even if human civilisation completely switches to nuclear energy, it would still be impossible to meet the energy needs of the current population. Hence our future generations must adapt to the newer, more efficient and extra-terrestrial mechanism for the production and utilisation of energy. Here we present one of the many proposed ideas for high energy production. The utilisation of the Sun as the energy source is the prime centre of attention here. The theoretically proposed Dyson sphere has been discussed in the following writeup.
The energy requirements and their fulfilment, the method of production
of the energy and level of development of a civilisation can all be
mapped through a scale known as the Nikolai Kardeshev's Scale.
The scale divides the level of civilisation in the universe into three
categories namely
1. Type 1: In the type 1 civilisation (or the present day civilisation)
the power production will be about 1000 Trillion watts. The goal of
this civilisation is to completely switch to clean energy sources. The
sources primarily include the ones available on the planet. Another
fulfilment includes the achievement of technological advancement
that could convert the energy from stars into electrical energy.
2. Type 2: This level of civilisation comprises the period where the
energy resources of the tell us are inadequate and hence the planets
in the proximity of the earth and the ultimate power source of mankind
'sun' is utilised in the production of energy. Dyson sphere is the
proposed structure in this type of civilisation.
3. Type 3: In this civilisation, biological vitality will be intertwined
with technology. It can be challenging to define vitality in these
civilisations. They will utilise all the energy produced by the galaxy.
The energy production will be of the order of 3.18*100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 i.e. 3.18 x 10^44 Watt/Volts.
Moreover, this civilisation will colonise galaxies, extracting energy from hundreds of millions of stars and many more extra-terrestrial projects.
The Dyson Sphere
Dyson Sphere is a megastructure which is usually conceived of as a
gigantic shell enclosing the Sun. The sphere is fabricated with mirrors or solar panels. It is designed to collect every iota of a star's energetic output. In this scenario, the principal is the Sun. This colossal figure emits 400 septillion watts per second, a trillion times our current worldwide energy usage.
Structure of Dyson sphere and its construction
From an engineering perspective, a Dyson Sphere sounds very impractical. It is basically a humungous, hollow ball. But constructing an actual sphere around the Sun is next to impossible because the tensile strength needed to prevent the sphere from tearing itself apart vastly exceeds that of any known material. Even if the structure is constructed. Its stability will still be a significant concern. The sphere would not gravitationally bind to its host star in a stable configuration. One may argue that a perfect sphere around a star would be in perfect equilibrium. However, any minute deviation from this ideal structure, say a small part of the sphere, is nudged closer to the star by any meteor strike. Such a perturbation will disrupt the system's harmony, and the structure may eventually collapse.
Even if the Dyson sphere consists of a vast surface area (600 million times the interior surface area of our planet) , a little of the surface would be habitable because of the lack of gravity. Now gravity can be created by spinning the whole sphere. Gravity can be synthesised as centrifugal force along an equatorial band. But this rotation would lead to even higher stress in the sphere that would destroy the megastructure.
The concept of Dyson's Sphere defies the laws of physics; a proposed Dyson Swarm seems to be a more realistic model. This structure consists of thousands of relatively small mirrors or solar panels in an array of orbits around the Sun. The facility is equivalent to a dense cloud of bees buzzing around a hive. This type of structure majorly surrounds the Sun and captures almost all the available solar energy.
Authors: S Anurag
Dhruv Sachdeva
Tanishq Raj Editor: Debojjal Dutta
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