A new study by Brian C. Lacki of the Breakthrough Listen project at the University of Oxford, UK, suggests some surprising characteristics of Dyson megaswarms. It takes a look at their super interesting possible new lives. Dyson megaswarms are futuristic architectures that could collect energy from stars. They are made up of hundreds of smaller satellites and shell segments which serve double duty as orbiting communities and solar energy collectors. This study, published today in The Astrophysical Journal, reveals some key insights about megaswarms. Their longevity is very strongly governed by things such as the size and environment of the star.
Lacki’s research takes a detailed look at how things develop inside of a megaswarm. Its casts important shadows on their flaking condition and permanence. These results indicate that with increasing stellar mass, a megaswarm experiences an increasingly longer destruction time. This calls into question the execution and purpose of all our designs, and what that says about the likelihood of encountering extraterrestrial intelligence.
The Design and Stability of Dyson Megaswarms
Continuing Lacki’s research, Luck proposed that a tripartite megaswarm with dynamic trajectory adjustments would be necessary to avoid a volatile shell structure. Physicist Freeman Dyson first proposed back in 1960 that violent gravitational instabilities produce huge material stresses. In turn, these stresses can quickly cause a strong bridge to crumble. Instead, Lacki proposes a more viable design: positioning elements around rings that increase in radius around the star.
This novel horizontal orientation would greatly improve the base’s stability in rough waters and enable increased energy capture with greater efficiency. A red giant star with one solar mass could have a radius 25 times greater than that of the sun. To create a small swarm around it, you would have to start with 4,800+ elements. In these scenarios, mean impacts between objects would occur on a million-year timescale. At the same time, the cascade effect, in which those collisions produce more fragments and dust, would play out in the blink of an eye—only 41,000 years.
Lacki cautions, it’s important to understand these dynamics. Without stellar megaswarm maintenance, he warns, they will be prone to destruction in as little as a few million years. This has continued fascinating implications for the persistence of technosignatures—traces of intelligent life—that could be linked with such megastructures.
The Lifespan of Megaswarms and Cosmic Considerations
What they found was astounding. A Dyson megaswarm might take as much time as it takes a hypothetical intelligent alien race to propagate throughout a galaxy. Since a red giant star with large enough mass has a destruction time that is extremely long, it can hold a staggering 5.3 billion-year charge. This longer period of time creates opportunities for new, innovative, and exciting pilots. If intelligent life does exist in other solar systems, it may have had considerable opportunities to generate detectable signatures.
For stars similar to our sun, at least 340 elements are needed to make a tiny swarm. These structures hold a remarkable ability to harness energy. Even just covering one-tenth of one percent of the spherical area at the Earth-sun distance we could produce two million times as much solar power as what currently arrives on Earth.
Lacki shares his thoughts on what this research means for the ongoing search for extraterrestrial civilizations. He points out that even if every star had intelligent life at some point, the odds of us seeing them is very low. This requires that our own technosignatures remain detectable for tens of millions of years. That can mean searching for smart life not just by proving they’re out there. We also need to consider how much time their technological signatures remain detectable.
The Threats to Megaswarms and Their Future
Astrophysical dynamics and processes represent significant challenges to the long-term stability of Dyson megaswarms. For instance, the gravitational pull of other planets or moons in the vicinity can result in sometimes catastrophic and rapid destruction. Notably, Jupiter’s presence would significantly impact a megaswarm positioned in Earth’s orbit, leading to its destruction in just a few hundred thousand years.
This really emphasizes how fragile these kinds of structures are, even when built around the most stable stars. Regardless of technological capacity, stabilizing nature into a usable state through usually antagonistic environments will always be key in determining how long Dyson megaswarms persist.