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Two things immediately popped to mind. (1) 'con display' from Star Trek (2) multi-star Dyson sphere under construction. The latter doesn't make sense though, se

Two things immediately popped to mind. (1) 'con display' from Star Trek (2) multi-star Dyson sphere under construction. The latter doesn't make sense though, seems that many single spheres would be simpler unless it was to be concealed: (3) sub-galactic Great Wall? Can we detect single-star Dyson spheres as the disappearance of stars before their expected end?

ianai 5y ago
If it's a Dyson-anything, it's way bigger than a single star: "The new MeerKAT radio data shows that the ORC’s large outer circle is possibly more than a million light years across, ten times the diameter of the Milky Way, with a series of smaller rings inside" It actually sounds more like the wisps of gas seen jetting through the Milky Way and being irradiated by something. That alone, I think, isn't too unnatural of a thing to see out there. Maybe someday this sort of thing will enlighten us on how matter dispersed in the early universe i.e. when these galaxies were forming out of still larger areas of matter. Who knows, maybe there's some dark energy/matter information to be gleaned in there, too.
- ianai 5y ago
  Replying to myself to avoid an edit - You know, if I was a hairbrained, mega-structure scientist from some future, highly advanced civilization that otherwise couldn't study or explain dark energy/matter, one way to simply gather data would be to fill huge regions of space with matter and watch how my known input evolves and changes over time. If science up to that point can explain 100% of the movements of the matter from then on, then I know my theories and data are widely in agreement. If I know nothing else has perturbed that matter and the data are off, then the disagreement tells me something about how physics works at super large scale. [If I know physics with plenty of certainty at those scales and something changes outside of my expectation then something/someone new to the scene perturbed that matter.] Which is to say, I wonder if there isn't a way to turn these oddballs into very valuable scientific data. Build radio-telescopes large enough to gather as fine grained data about these ORCs as possible and model away. Maybe something in there does translate to physics which explain dark energy/matter.
  - ianai 5y ago
    Another hairbrained idea: This is just a region of the universe that started out with a smattering of mass-energy in the early universe. What we're seeing now is the residue around the edges after gravity has merged the denser lumps of mass-energy into galaxies, black holes, stars, planets, etc. Subtracting out the initial mass-energy, but missing certain regions of sparse mass-energy due to relative gravitational isolation. Throw in whatever topological changes in spacetime due to inflation, perhaps, if so affected.
    - finnh 5y ago
      FYI just because you seem to like it: "harebrained", like having a rabbit's brain
      - ianai 5y ago
        Thanks! Dictionary.com at least says hairbrained is just a variation on the spelling.
    - batch12 5y ago
      While we're imagining.. maybe it's a swarm of self-replicating AI locusts that consume entire worlds. They're growing, almost exponentially, outward from the poor civilization that created them...
vikingerik 5y ago
We could, if we happen to be looking at that star, but we'd have to catch them in the act. Remember how vast these time scales are, and consequently how improbable it is that any other civilization would be doing it in the same decade or century as we exist. We've had the ability to detect and track such changes in star radiation for roughly a century. The potential scale of intelligent life is on the order of ten billion years and counting. That's a 1 in 10^8 chance that they're doing it at the same time as we happen to be looking. Also, a Dyson sphere isn't invisible - the star doesn't exactly disappear. The material will absorb some radiation, heat up, and glow in the infrared. We've calculated what such a heat signature would look like, and haven't found any such thing yet.
- ianai 5y ago
  It's also ten times the size of the Milky Way.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    And things ten times the size of the Milky Way are likely to last a while.
  - 867-5309 5y ago
    *possibly
tshaddox 5y ago
> (2) multi-star Dyson sphere under construction. We have a dozen or so stars within 10 light years. This circle is a million light years across. So I’m guessing it would be a ludicrous number of Dyson spheres.

ianai 5y ago

If it's a Dyson-anything, it's way bigger than a single star: "The new MeerKAT radio data shows that the ORC’s large outer circle is possibly more than a million light years across, ten times the diameter of the Milky Way, with a series of smaller rings inside" It actually sounds more like the wisps of gas seen jetting through the Milky Way and being irradiated by something. That alone, I think, isn't too unnatural of a thing to see out there. Maybe someday this sort of thing will enlighten us on how matter dispersed in the early universe i.e. when these galaxies were forming out of still larger areas of matter. Who knows, maybe there's some dark energy/matter information to be gleaned in there, too.

ianai 5y ago
Replying to myself to avoid an edit - You know, if I was a hairbrained, mega-structure scientist from some future, highly advanced civilization that otherwise couldn't study or explain dark energy/matter, one way to simply gather data would be to fill huge regions of space with matter and watch how my known input evolves and changes over time. If science up to that point can explain 100% of the movements of the matter from then on, then I know my theories and data are widely in agreement. If I know nothing else has perturbed that matter and the data are off, then the disagreement tells me something about how physics works at super large scale. [If I know physics with plenty of certainty at those scales and something changes outside of my expectation then something/someone new to the scene perturbed that matter.] Which is to say, I wonder if there isn't a way to turn these oddballs into very valuable scientific data. Build radio-telescopes large enough to gather as fine grained data about these ORCs as possible and model away. Maybe something in there does translate to physics which explain dark energy/matter.
- ianai 5y ago
  Another hairbrained idea: This is just a region of the universe that started out with a smattering of mass-energy in the early universe. What we're seeing now is the residue around the edges after gravity has merged the denser lumps of mass-energy into galaxies, black holes, stars, planets, etc. Subtracting out the initial mass-energy, but missing certain regions of sparse mass-energy due to relative gravitational isolation. Throw in whatever topological changes in spacetime due to inflation, perhaps, if so affected.
  - finnh 5y ago
    FYI just because you seem to like it: "harebrained", like having a rabbit's brain
    - ianai 5y ago
      Thanks! Dictionary.com at least says hairbrained is just a variation on the spelling.
  - batch12 5y ago
    While we're imagining.. maybe it's a swarm of self-replicating AI locusts that consume entire worlds. They're growing, almost exponentially, outward from the poor civilization that created them...

vikingerik 5y ago

We could, if we happen to be looking at that star, but we'd have to catch them in the act. Remember how vast these time scales are, and consequently how improbable it is that any other civilization would be doing it in the same decade or century as we exist. We've had the ability to detect and track such changes in star radiation for roughly a century. The potential scale of intelligent life is on the order of ten billion years and counting. That's a 1 in 10^8 chance that they're doing it at the same time as we happen to be looking. Also, a Dyson sphere isn't invisible - the star doesn't exactly disappear. The material will absorb some radiation, heat up, and glow in the infrared. We've calculated what such a heat signature would look like, and haven't found any such thing yet.

ianai 5y ago
It's also ten times the size of the Milky Way.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  And things ten times the size of the Milky Way are likely to last a while.
- 867-5309 5y ago
  *possibly

tshaddox 5y ago

> (2) multi-star Dyson sphere under construction. We have a dozen or so stars within 10 light years. This circle is a million light years across. So I’m guessing it would be a ludicrous number of Dyson spheres.