Dyson Shells and the Astrobiological Imperative
Finding evidence of large-scale 'macro-engineering' projects around other stars may be our best chance of detecting other civilizations. So says Milan Ćirković (Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade) in a paper discussed here yesterday. But what would make us think such structures exist? Recent microlensing projects have found evidence of objects around distant stars -- we can detect their lensing effect and separate it from that of the parent star. We naturally assume these are planets, but could they be artificial habitats or other system-wide engineering projects?
I think some of them almost certainly are. Unfortunately, excluding communication with their inhabitants, we simply won't know for sure until we arrive at "their" level.
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