Deep into the Cosmos, advanced alien civilizations could find some peculiar ways of producing energy. One of them could be by exploiting black holes, as the cosmic monsters are among the Universe’s biggest energy sources. The wild hypothesis is explained in a new article from Phys.org.
However, it’s not easy to grasp so much energy like the one emitted by a black hole. Scientists also have a possible scenario solving the conundrum, if, of course, advanced alien civilizations really are out there, somewhere.
Encircling the black hole into a Dyson sphere
A hypothetical Type II Kardashev civilization enters the spotlight. The Kardashev scale was proposed in 1964 by a Soviet astronomer, and it means a method of measuring the level of technological advancement of a civilization based on how much energy it’s able to use. If a Type I Kardashev civilization is able to use the energy present on its own planet, a Type II goes a major step forward.
In order to exploit all the power emitted by a black hole, the Type II Kardashev civilization would need to encircle the cosmic object using a Dyson sphere, according to a new study published by a team led by researchers from the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan.
A Dyson sphere is a stellar mega-engineering project capable of encapsulating a whole star or black hole in an artificial sheath for capturing energy.
Even if the sphere captures the energy emitted by the black hole, the sphere will suffer from heat loss, making the structure visible to humans.
Black holes remain among the most mysterious cosmic objects in the Universe, as they are capable of defying many of the laws of physics themselves. Nobody knows for sure what happens with the matter absorbed by a black hole, although the general accepted idea is that it disappears forever.
