Could we detect a Dyson Swarm?

[3blake7]

My hypothetical situation is: 5000 satellites in orbit around a star, lets say Barnard's Star. Each satellite is 400x400 kilometers and they are evenly distributed in orbit, which is 25 million kilometers from the star. They would only cover about 5% of the star and there would be equal coverage throughout their orbits, as some satellites go behind the star, new satellites would be coming out.

 

The amount of light wouldn't change all that much, maybe a slight dimming and brightening on the left and right edges of the star.

 

I read they have a candidate star that could be a Dyson Swarm but they are thinking it might be comet fragments. Anyways, I was wondering if my scenario would be detectable with current methodologies and technologies.

[EdEarl]

Kepler space telescope identifies potential planets by watching the planet partly eclipse its star, the magnitude reduction is 0.01%. Seems like a Dyson array eclipsing 5% of a star should be easier. However, IDK it's apples and oranges to compare.

[Phi for All]

My hypothetical situation is: 5000 satellites in orbit around a star, lets say Barnard's Star. Each satellite is 400x400 kilometers and they are evenly distributed in orbit, which is 25 million kilometers from the star. They would only cover about 5% of the star and there would be equal coverage throughout their orbits, as some satellites go behind the star, new satellites would be coming out.

 

If you're going to the trouble of surrounding your star to capture as much available solar energy as possible with a Dyson construct, why are you settling for only 5%? I would think a Dyson Ring at 1AU would be the first thing to build, probably starting out the way you describe, but just in a ring that will later be connected.

 

I read they have a candidate star that could be a Dyson Swarm but they are thinking it might be comet fragments. Anyways, I was wondering if my scenario would be detectable with current methodologies and technologies.

 

Is this the article?

[3blake7]

 

If you're going to the trouble of surrounding your star to capture as much available solar energy as possible with a Dyson construct, why are you settling for only 5%? I would think a Dyson Ring at 1AU would be the first thing to build, probably starting out the way you describe, but just in a ring that will later be connected.

 

 

Is this the article?

Yep, that's the one.

 

As far as not going "all the way" with the Dyson Swarm, I'm using the Dyson Swarm to produce antimatter for pion rockets for interstellar spacecraft. 5% is good enough, that gives me enough anti-matter to launch an interstellar colony ship once every 30 years or so, with the trip taking like 75 years. It's a massive ship with 1 million colonists. Actually I just recently found a claim that anti-matter conversion energy could be 1% using the Schwinger particle pair production method, according to Dr. Obousy. Dr. Foward said we could get 0.01% using known technology in a purpose built facility, which was the number I was using when I got 5%. With Obsouy's number, it can be smaller, 0.05%.

I was curious about detectability because I am trying to decide if I'll have the galaxy be empty, with no aliens or already completely conquered by a 7 billion year old civilization. I read that our star and planet is young compared to others, some have an 11 billion year head start on us. It would only take 10 million years for a civilization to spread throughout the whole galaxy using pion rockets and building Dyson Swarms to produce anti-matter along the way. I was trying to decide between the Fermi Paradox Zoo Hypothesis, with the aliens using laser based communications to make it harder to intercept their signals. I was thinking this would be likely because quantum processors would be able to decrypt most encryptions, so going to lasers makes it harder to get the data, to decrypt it. I made my own variation of Drake's Equation, which has a timeline, and even with extremely pessimistic numbers, when there is only 3 technologically advanced civilizations, there is always one with a billion year or more of a head start. If my smaller Dyson Swarms are detectable, I was thinking about going with the Rare Earth Hypothesis.

Edited March 9, 2016 by 3blake7