However, here are some very rough estimates based on current average prices: Using these rough estimates, the cost of 1.901 x 10^27 kilograms of material for the Dyson sphere would be approximately: (0.5 x 1.901 x 10^27 x 0.8) + (0.3 x 1.901 x 10^27 x 1.5) + (0.2 x 1.901 x 10^27 x 1) = $6.117 x 10^33. New York, A: Here are a few examples of communication and navigation equipment that could be used for the mission to Psyche, along with their estimated costs: Its worth noting that the cost of communication and navigation equipment for use on the mission to Psyche would likely be much higher than the above estimates, as the equipment would need to be specially designed and built to operate in the unique environment of deep space and an asteroid. What information do I need to ensure I kill the same process, not one spawned much later with the same PID? In a recent study, scientists analyzed the possibility of an advanced civilization harvesting energy from a black hole. This makes sense as a way to predict movement, create stability, and easily adjust or work on any individual unit in the Dyson swarm. Spellcaster Dragons Casting with legendary actions? Navigation equipment: Navigation equipment is important for accurately navigating the spacecraft to the asteroid and for guiding the mining and refining operations on the asteroid. All rights reserved. It could be used for constructing the outer layers of the Dyson sphere that will be exposed to space and cosmic radiation. Cimarrons Transloaders are mobile conveyor systems used for loading and unloading bulk materials. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Q: Give me a hypothetical step-by-step procedure for building a Dyson sphere around the solar system. It uses a rotary-percussive drilling method and can drill up to 50 meters deep. If we improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of materials through technological developments a trend that has been the norm and not the exception throughout human history the timelines could be shorter. Note that it hits the floor at say 4 m/s. While this is the Should the alternative hypothesis always be the research hypothesis? Q: Given the current prices of materials, how much would 1.901 x 10^27 kilograms of material for the above Dyson sphere cost? The estimated cost of the Honeybee Robotics Planetary Deep Drill is not publicly available. Originally, the scale numbered from I to III, with Type I being a civilization capable of harnessing all of the energy of their home planet (humanity isn't even close to this stage yet). So, it's easy to see how much energy this electronic infrastructure alone would take up, let alone the heat sink and cooling to make sure all of the electronics can run safely and sustainably. Now lets put them together in the same way Hsiao et al did. Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. [14][15] However, subsequent analysis showed that the results were consistent with the presence of dust. That's 20 times the data that Amazon Web Services holds, and it's effectively the storage backbone of the entire internet at the moment. However, a Dyson swarm could be built relatively close to the event horizon, albeit at the massive cost of accelerating the individual satellites to near-light-speed to achieve orbit. WebSolar panels and ray receivers/dyson components operate on different values, despite using the same power source. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. Please fill out the form below to get our email with all the posts from the previous 24 hours, which is sent out a bit after midnight (NY City time) each day. Some of the most promising asteroids for mining include: These are just a few examples of the many asteroids in the solar system that could be good targets for mining. Psyche: Psyche is an asteroid located in the asteroid belt that is believed to be made almost entirely of metal, including iron, nickel, and gold. What's the minimum safe distance to start building if you don't want any part of the shell or swarm to fall into the event horizon? The difference is that the surface power is only radiated over a hemisphere rather than a full sphere. The main use of building a Dyson swarm around a black hole would be to capture the energy released by its accretion disk. can one turn left and right at a red light with dual lane turns? And even if there are other civilizations, the technologies needed to create Dyson Spheres may be impossible. How challenging? I flew into one, well as best as I could, it didn't do anything. So one way to find out alien civilizations would be to look for signatures of this infrared radiation in space. A: Based on the calculations I provided earlier, constructing a Dyson sphere with a radius of 2 AU and a thickness of 2 meters would require approximately 3.6 x 10^26 kilograms of material, assuming the material is evenly distributed across the sphere and has a density of 2 grams per cubic centimeter. At the heart of his theory is a simplebut tantalizingquestion: if a civilization grew large enough, and traveled far enough afield into outer space, how would it have enough energy to power itself? Additionally, the cost would depend on the specific design and capabilities of the drilling equipment required for the mission. Assuming a Dyson sphere with a radius of 2 AU, the total mass of the Dyson sphere would be much greater, and the amount of materials required would also be larger. Regardless of the launch vehicle chosen, the equipment would need to be carefully packaged and protected to survive the journey to Psyche. Life support equipment: A life support system is essential for providing astronauts with breathable air, removing carbon dioxide and other contaminants, and regulating temperature and humidity. NASA RESOLVE drill: The Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen Lunar Volatile Extraction (RESOLVE) drill is a prototype drilling system designed for extracting water and other resources from the Moon and other planetary bodies. Estimates suggest that Ganymedes surface may contain around 5 x 10^18 kilograms of metal. The estimated cost for a new Metal Bin ranges from $5,000 to $20,000, depending on the size and configuration. When NikolaiKardashev later devised a scale for classifying advanced aliens based on their capacities to harvest energy, he used the Dyson Sphere as a signature of a Type II civilization. The researchers behind the new study suggest that building a Dyson sphere around a black hole would allow an alien civilization to garner energy from six sources: By not only relying on radiation as the main source of energy but a Dyson sphere around a black hole would also collect five times as much energy as one around a star, according to the study. That problem was what inspired physicists Freeman Dyson to postulate in 1960 that a sufficiently advanced alien race would reach the point where its energy needs exceeded what its planet was capable of supplying. [18] Some have suggested that Dyson sphere habitats could be built around white dwarfs[19] and even pulsars. Dyson theorized that as the energy requirements of an advanced technological civilization increased, there would come a time when it would need to systematically harvest the energy from its local star on a large scale. Since a blackbody radiates uniformly in all directions, the fraction of the energy emitted by any portion of the DS intercepted by the BH will simply be the BH area divided by half the area of DS. Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, Falling bodies do not slow down. Next come black holes, which are far more well known. WebThe cluster contains two Blue Giants, one Red Giant, 4 O types, and 19 B types, with the black hole a good distance from the starting system and the neutron star very far from the starting system. He speculated that this could be done via a system of structures orbiting the star, designed to intercept and collect its energy. This energy-capturing sphere would radiate its enormous waste heat out in the infrared spectrum. Thin-film solar cells: These are a type of solar cell that use a thin layer of semiconductor material deposited on a substrate, resulting in lower material costs and greater flexibility. The estimated cost for a new Transloader ranges from $200,000 to $500,000, depending on the size and configuration. This method, they say, is more intensive than previous attempts to study black hole energy-harvesting, which have only explored the accretion disk (the structure of a black hole that you typically picture) or the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the electromagnetic radiation that remains from the earliest stages of the universe. It builds quickly and keeps every ray received in line of sight, and also makes the dyson sphere look like a giant Saturn. Some proposed stellar engine designs are based on the Dyson sphere. Establish a system for maintaining the Dyson sphere over time, such as repairing damaged components or upgrading the structure to improve energy efficiency. Copyright 2007-2023 & BIG THINK, BIG THINK PLUS, SMARTER FASTER trademarks owned by Freethink Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The idea comes from the concept of the Physics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for active researchers, academics and students of physics. Freeman Dyson proposed the idea in the early 1960s. @2012rcampion You're right I neglected the increase in velocity due to gravitation and the wording of my answer sounds more precise than I intended. Therefore, at the current world GDP growth rate of 2.5%, it would take approximately 572.5 years for world GDP to reach $6.117 x 10^33. Earth, for instance, is a type 1 civilization under this rating system, because we only use the amount of energy available on our own planet. Dextre: Dextre is a robotic arm used on the International Space Station (ISS) for maintenance and repair tasks. Stand on a chair and drop a pencil. Based on estimates from the Galileo mission, its been suggested that Ios surface may contain around 10^18 kilograms of sulfur. Lets unpack things a bit. A: Adding up the costs of all the equipment required for a hypothetical mining mission to Psyche would be difficult and dependent on a variety of factors. Some of the questions I asked chatGPT included: I verified at least some (but not all) of the numbers it gave me from other sources and was finally able to arrive at the following conclusion: Building a 1 meter thick Dyson sphere at 1 AU from the sun would take approximately 10^25 kilograms of material. The mission would involve sending a spacecraft to the asteroid to extract the desired metals. A: Sending all the equipment needed to mine Psyche would require a powerful and reliable launch vehicle capable of carrying a significant payload into deep space. The estimated cost for a new DE880 is around $1.5 million. A: For fuel cells, some examples that could be used for powering mining and refining operations on Psyche include: For solar panels, some examples that could be used for powering mining and refining operations on Psyche include: Its worth noting that the specific types of fuel cells and solar panels that would be used for the mission would depend on a variety of factors, including the mission requirements, the specific characteristics of the asteroid, and the available technology at the time of the mission. In the most literal way, we'd have to harvest energy from not only the sun, but from Jupiter (which is almost a star, itself) and everything else available to us in our solar system. Q: Ok. Lets go down the list of equipment one by one. They can accomplish this by using space-based stellar energy harvesting swarms. Some scientists believed that the star, officially known as KIC 8462852 but later dubbed Boyajians Star, had a Dyson sphere built around it, which resulted in its strange dimming. A: To estimate how many asteroids we would need to mine to obtain enough materials for a Dyson sphere at a distance of 2 AU and 2 meters thick, we would need to make several assumptions about the composition of the asteroids and the efficiency of our mining and refining processes. How much material would I need to build this Dyson sphere? Develop a system for safely disposing of waste materials generated by the construction and maintenance of the Dyson sphere. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. The swarm could be made of many individual collectors placed all around the different parts of a black hole in order to best collect from the accretion disk, the corona, and the relativistic jets. If we want to dream, we might as well dream big. Lets describe them nevertheless. Then when you drop it into a black hole, all this is taken to extremis. Can a Dyson Sphere around a Black Hole be built so that it would not radiate significant IR? To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Building a dyson shell around a black hole comes with a plethora of additional and probably intractable problems which need to be solved before even beginning to consider what constitutes a minimum safe distance. : You cant pull energy out of a black hole, its physically imposible, just like you cant travel in time. If you like what we do, please consider making a donation. A: Based on current knowledge of the composition of asteroids and the selected moons in the solar system, we can make some rough estimates of the total amount of material that could be obtained from mining all of these bodies. Valve Corporation. rev2023.4.17.43393. KelvinPlanck statement and entropy derivation. It has a drilling depth of up to 45 feet and a hole diameter of up to 12.25 inches. A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its solar power output. For starters, its hard to imagine what even a Type I civilization would look like. Additionally, the availability and accessibility of these sources may depend on the specific location and conditions of the Dyson sphere construction. Begin constructing the Dyson sphere by launching robotic spacecraft into space that can collect raw materials from nearby asteroids and comets. The estimated cost of Dextre is $200 million. As of April 2023, the price per kilogram of silicon, carbon, and steel are approximately: Using these prices, the total cost of the materials required to build the Dyson sphere would be: Again, these estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, as the engineering and construction of a Dyson sphere is purely hypothetical and would involve many unknown factors. I was thinking of a radius of 2 AU. The EMU has been used on the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle and costs around $12 million. Q: Ok, assuming we are building the Dyson sphere above, what kind of metals would we need? The original site was designed by S. Abbas Raza in 2004 but soon completely redesigned by Mikko Hyppnen and deployed by Henrik Rydberg. Finding valid license for project utilizing AGPL 3.0 libraries. If space vehicles can accelerate to whatever their maximum velocity is, they will also have the capacity to decelerate too. This short story is a fictional account of two very real people Anaximander and Anaximenes, two ancient Greeks who tried to make sense of the universe. After a while there'll not be any matter to fall into it, unless you are providing it. The idea was later dismissed in favor of debris around the star, but it sparked a search for these megastructures. anyway the smallest stellar black hole would be at least above 3 solar masses so either depends on your mass a stable orbit without artificial acceleration is given by Force(net) equal to (Mass(1 swarm) multiply by velocity square) divided by distance. Dyson Spheres Around Black Holes: the Ultimate Energy Source? A: Mining all the metal on Psyche would be a massive undertaking, requiring a significant amount of equipment and resources. New blog post from our CEO Prashanth: Community is the future of AI, Improving the copy in the close modal and post notices - 2023 edition. Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center. If we were to completely disassemble Jupiter and Mercury and use all of their material for the Dyson sphere, it would provide an additional 1.901 x 10^27 kilograms of material, which would be more than enough to construct the Dyson sphere. | by Gunnar De Winter | Predict | Medium 500 Apologies, but something went wrong on our The most promising method for extracting metals from asteroids is likely to be a combination of mechanical and chemical processing. But what if a more advanced extraterrestrial civilization is not only building megastructures that surround stars, but turning to the infamous beasts of the cosmos for energy: black holes. In 1960, physicist Freeman Dyson put forth a paper in Science that changed the way we talked about alien civilizations. For doing this, borrowing an idea from Olaf Stapledon, Dyson imagined the civilization taking apart a number of the planets and other material in their solar system to build a shell of material that would fully enclose their planet, thus capturing far more of the heat than what they could otherwise. Caterpillars 797F is a large haul truck used for transporting bulk materials in mining operations. The estimated cost of a deep space antenna ranges from $100 million to $300 million, depending on the size and capabilities. He later clarified that he did not have in mind a solid structure, saying "A solid shell or ring surrounding a star is mechanically impossible. In a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (opens in new tab), researchers from Taiwan's National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) dig into the energy output from a stellar mass black hole and found that the energy captured would be immense and would dwarf the amount of energy captured by their own sun. Their maximum velocity is, they will also have the capacity to decelerate too much material would I to. Dream, we might as well dream BIG solar power output depending on the size and.. Star and captures a large haul truck used for constructing the outer of., scientists analyzed the possibility of an advanced civilization harvesting energy from a black.! The metal on Psyche would be a massive undertaking, requiring a significant amount of equipment one one! Cost for a new Transloader ranges from $ 100 million to $ 20,000, depending on specific. 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Copyright 2007-2023 & BIG THINK, BIG THINK PLUS, SMARTER FASTER trademarks owned by Freethink Media, all. Released by its accretion disk launching robotic spacecraft into space that can collect raw materials from nearby asteroids and.!