Scientists have made a huge breakthrough after discovering that alien plants may be using the stars in the Milky Way to generate power.
Hypothetical “Dyson spheres” are large and complex structures that only extremely technologically advanced civilisations would be able to build, designed to draw energy from stars.
A project called Hephaistos, named after the Greek god of fire and metallurgy, has seen researchers discover a new way to look for signs of alien power generation.
They began by analysing data collected by astronomical surveys Gaia DR3, 2MASS and WISE to flag Dyson sphere candidates in the Milky Way.
Researchers wrote in a study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: “In this study, we present a comprehensive search for partial Dyson spheres by analyzing optical and infrared observations from Gaia, 2MASS, and WISE.
“A specialised pipeline has been developed to identify potential Dyson sphere candidates focusing on detecting sources that display anomalous infrared excesses that cannot be attributed to any known natural source of such radiation.”
Researchers built a catalogue of potential Dyson spheres using data from about five million sources.
They looked at signs of partially completed alien megastructures that could emit excess infrared radiation.
The journal entry added: “This structure would emit waste heat in the form of mid-infrared radiation that, in addition to the level of completion of the structure, would depend on its effective temperature.”
The energy can also be emitted by natural objects in the universe such as stellar dust rings and nebulae.
Of the five million energy sources they looked at, the researchers zeroed in on seven as potential Dyson spheres.
The journal read: “All sources are clear mid-infrared emitters with no clear contaminators or signatures that indicate an obvious mid-infrared origin.”
It is thought the radiation could be coming from warm debris disks surrounding these seven candidates, including red dwarf stars.
The journal entry added: “We found seven apparent M dwarfs exhibiting an infrared excess of unclear nature that is compatible with our Dyson sphere models.
“Additional analyses are definitely necessary to unveil the true nature of these sources.”
