How would an Alderson Disk work?
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How would an Alderson Disk work?
Because of the way gravity would work on our Alderson Disk, the water could be suspended by gravity. The oceans on the disk-shaped structure would literally be bottomless. For the same gravitational reasons, humans would be able to live on both the top and the bottom side of the disk.
How big is an Alderson Disk?
150 million miles
The Alderson disk would have a diameter of 150 million miles or so—the size of the inner solar system out past Mars. It would be several thousand miles thick, large enough that there would be a vertical gravitational pull on both side.
Is Alderson disk possible?
The Sun rests in the hole at the center of the disk. The outer perimeter of an Alderson disk would be roughly equivalent to the orbit of Mars or Jupiter. Life could exist on either side of the disk, though close to the Sun the heat would make life impossible without protection.
How does a Shkadov thruster work?
Solar radiation reflects off the mirror’s inner, curved surface back toward the sun, effectively pushing our star with its own sunlight—the reflected energy produces a tiny net thrust. Voilà, a Shkadov Thruster, and humanity is ready to hit the galactic trail.
Could humans build a Dyson sphere?
Feasibility. Although such megastructures are theoretically possible, building a stable Dyson sphere system is currently far beyond humanity’s engineering capacity. The number of craft required to obtain, transmit, and maintain a complete Dyson sphere exceeds present-day industrial capabilities.
How far away would a Dyson sphere be?
93 million miles
A Dyson sphere might be, say, the size of Earth’s orbit around the sun. We orbit at a distance of 93 million miles (about 150 million km). The website SentientDevelopments describes the Dyson sphere this way: It would consist of a shell of solar collectors (or habitats) around the star.
Is a stellar engine possible?
One of the simplest examples of a stellar engine is the Shkadov thruster (named after Dr. Leonid Shkadov who first proposed it), or a Class A stellar engine. Such thrust and acceleration would be very slight, but such a system could be stable for millennia.
Why a Dyson sphere is impossible?
Maddox points out that a Dyson sphere is physically impossible. To keep this shell in orbit around the Sun at any distance in the Habitable Zone would require some force counteracting gravity and pushing outwards on the sphere. In stars, this is radiation pressure.
What is the point of a Dyson sphere?
A Dyson sphere is a hypothesized artificial habitat built around a star by a civilization with sufficient technology. It is intended to capture as much as possible of the power output of the star, and should be a distinctive characteristic of a civilization able to control the resources of a planetary system.