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New Study Says There’s a Way to Make Dyson Bubbles and Stellar Engines Stable

In addition to being a staple of science fiction, the concept of megastructures has long been the subject of serious scientific studies. As famed physicist Freeman Dyson originally proposed in 1960, “Malthusian pressures will ultimately drive an intelligent species” to occupy an “artificial biosphere which completely surrounds its parent star.” In short, he theorized that advanced civilizations would disassemble their planet (or planets) to create a structure (which has since come to be called a “Dyson Sphere” that would harness all the energy from their star and provide immense living space.

Over time, scientists have proposed many variations on this structure, collectively known as “Dyson Structures.” However, considerable research has countered these proposals, arguing that such megastructures would be unstable. In a new study, famed engineer Colin R. McInnes demonstrates how two specific megastructures – Dyson Bubbles and Stellar Engines – could be built in such a way that they would be passively stable over time. These findings could aid the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) by constraining the technosignatures these structures could produce.

Colin R. McInnes is a Professor of Engineering Science at the University of Glasgow and the chair of the James Watt School of Engineering. His findings are presented in a paper that appeared in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. While the concept is several decades old, megastructures have received renewed attention thanks to the discovery of Boyajian’s Star and other cases where stars exhibited periodic dimming, were low in luminosity, or were “missing.”

In addition to being a leading figure in the field of solar sails, reflectors, and satellites, McInnes has also previously authored a paper on the subject of megastructure stability. As he summarized in this latest study, megastructures have been proposed for a range of ventures, including asteroid orbit modification, climate engineering (i.e., solar shields), terraforming (a la Ken Roy’s Shell World concept), and planetary orbit modification (moving them into the star’s habitable zone).

At larger scales, scientists have considered how massive swarms of reflectors could enshroud a star, known as a Dyson Swarm, Bubble, or Matrioshka Brain, or be used to alter a star’s orbit, known as a Stellar Engine or Shkadov Thruster. In the case of the former, the reflective surface ensures that radiation pressure will levitate the swarm (which could support habitats) above the star. In the latter, a flat reflective disk remains bound to a star through gravitational coupling, causing the star to move.

Much like Dyson proposed in his original paper, these studies assume that advanced civilizations will experience exponential growth and rising energy demands as they age. “Freeman Dyson imagined a swarm of energy-collecting elements enveloping a central star as an endpoint for a civilisation with continuously growing energy demands,” McInnes told Universe Today via email. “It’s clearly difficult to infer motivations. However, the universality of the laws of physics means that we can at least speculate on how such structures could be engineered.”

While a popular idea among scientists, considerable research by physicists and structural engineers has cast doubt on the existence of megastructures. In short, they have argued that such structures would be, by their very nature, gravitationally unstable. But as McInnes explained, it is possible that megastructures could be built in a way that would ensure long-term passive stability:

Many concepts, such as a rigid Dyson sphere or Ringworld, are not in orbit, and so a small displacement can cause the structure to drift and collide with the central star. They would therefore need active control measures to stabilise them. However, my interest is in understanding ways in which ultra-large structures could be engineered so that they are passively stable. We can imagine that engineers, terrestrial or otherwise, would prefer passive stability to more complex active control measures.

The simplest design (he notes) for a Stellar Engine would likely be a flat reflective disk. Using an ultra-large disk as a starting point, he calculated the structure’s stability from first principles using a simplified model of a perfectly reflecting rigid disc. He then employed the functional forms of gravitational and radiation-pressure forces to investigate the stability of a stellar engine and of orbiting reflectors (making up a Dyson’ Bubble) in different configurations. Said McInnes:

Stability analysis involves adding a small displacement to the equations of motion describing such structures and then determining if the displacement grows with time. Then, by considering ways to engineer the structure’s properties, for example, its geometry or mass distribution, we can determine if it can be stabilized such that small displacements do not grow and are bounded. There isn’t a set process as such; it’s a case of looking at the equations of motion and considering how the forces acting could be modified, for example, through changes in the geometry or mass distribution of the structure.

In the end, his analysis showed that while an ideal stellar engine comprising a uniform, reflective, rigid disc is unstable, a reflective disc whose mass is concentrated at its edge can (in principle) be passively stable. By balancing the gravitational and radiation pressure forces, such a design would also maximize the stellar engine’s propulsion. Meanwhile, a self-stabilizing Dyson Bubble or Swarm would avoid (or minimize) collisions among the cloud’s elements and maintain equilibrium, provided the right configuration and design considerations were taken into account.

These structures would also produce telltale technosignatures that SETI researchers could look for in the future. While a Stellar Engine would scatter light reflected from its star, a Dyson Bubble would appear as a dense cloud enclosing a star, thus modifying its spectral characteristics. For a static cloud, there would be no flickering apparent to observers, unlike a swarm of orbiting reflectors, which would pass in front of the stellar disc. And as Dyson first predicted, e a solid Dyson sphere would be discernible from the infrared excess produced by radiated heat.

However, as McInnes added, this study is not the final word on megastructures and their potential stability. “The analysis in the paper is simplified and makes a number of assumptions,” he said. “However, it’s a starting point to begin to understand how ultra-large structures could be engineered to be passively stable. For example, a dense Dyon bubble can apparently be self-stabilising due to light pressure falling faster than gravity as we move out through the cloud of elements. Perhaps by understanding how such structures can be engineered to be passively stable, we can better predict the technosignatures associated with them.”

Further Reading: MNRAS

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Murder trial set for driver accused of killing 4 Pepperdine students

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Driving at speeds of up to 104 mph, Fraser Michael Bohm whipped around a section of Pacific Coast Highway known as Dead Man’s Curve, skidded out of control and killed four Pepperdine University sorority sisters, prosecutors allege.

In September — nearly three years since the fatal accident — he will stand trial on murder charges.

Bohm, 24, is charged with four counts of murder and four counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence stemming from the Oct. 17, 2023 crash in which he swerved onto the shoulder of the westbound PCH and slammed into three parked cars and the women, who were walking nearby.

Bohm’s defense team repeatedly has argued that there is inadequate evidence to sustain murder charges against him. They claim that his alleged speeding does not meet the legal standard for implied malice, meaning to act with a conscious disregard for human life. He was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash, according to his attorneys.

“The data shows fatal collisions are rare” over a 10-year period on the section of PCH where the crash took place, defense attorney Alan Jackson told the court Monday, arguing that Bohm could not have expected that death could result from his alleged speeding.

A judge rejected this line of reasoning at a November hearing and did so again Monday, moving to set a Sept. 8 trial date and a Sept. 2 pretrial hearing.

Prosecutors with the L.A. County district attorney’s office have argued that Bohm knew there were potentially life-threatening consequences to accelerating over 100 mph in the 45-mph zone of PCH where the accident took place. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Thomas Rubinson agreed, noting in November that Bohm told investigators he knew PCH “like the back of his hand” and that two of his best friends died in high-speed crashes.

On Monday, Bohm’s defense attorneys again tried to argue that Bohm was not aware his actions carried a high probability of death and also alleged that the prosecuting team unfairly withheld evidence relating to Bohm’s cellphone and vehicle speeds.

However, Rubinson ruled that the defense team was able to acquire sufficient evidence around traffic safety, collision history and enforcement activity along PCH without having to lobby prosecutors for the data. He said there were no evidentiary violations made by the district attorney’s office.

The victims of the crash were Alpha Phi sorority sisters Niamh Rolston, 20; Peyton Stewart, 21; Asha Weir, 21; and Deslyn Williams, 21, who all received their degrees posthumously.

The tragic accident sparked renewed calls for safety improvements along the 21-mile section of PCH in Malibu, one of the deadliest roads in the state, where 63 people have died since 2010. In July 2024, one person was killed and two injured in a head-on collision along the same stretch where the Pepperdine students died.

Traffic collisions dropped precipitously in the aftermath of the 2025 Palisades fire, when the road was closed for weeks and then reopened with strict speed limits. Nonetheless, as cars returned and speeding increased, accidents resumed. In February, a pedestrian became the latest Malibu fatality along an area of PCH near Point Dume.

Times staff writer Richard Winton and City News Service contributed to this report.

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Why Restarting a Nuclear Power Plant Can Be Much Harder Than Expected

The first U.S. attempt at reopening a shuttered reactor has been held back by run-down equipment and a lack of planning.

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Black Hole Collisions Tell a Tale of Repeating Mergers

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A black hole merger is one of the Universe’s more energetic, massive, and weird events. During such a collision, two black holes orbit closer and closer until they collide and become a much more massive black hole. The event can emit neutrinos, photons from energized gases, and, as it happens, gravitational waves. Those waves help tell the story of the two objects involved in the collision.

Recent gravitational wave detections show hundreds of such mergers in the Universe. Many probably came from collisions of black holes created when massive stars died in supernova explosions. That’s the standard story we all learn about the deaths of supermassive stars—the creation of stellar black holes. But what happens to them afterwards? Those “smaller” black holes can merge again, creating a more massive black hole. And it could happen again, making larger and more massive objects in a process called “hierarchical merging.” It’s most likely happening in very crowded regions of galaxies.

A team of scientists including MIT’s Salvatore Vitale and Cailin Plunkett, Thomas Callister of Williams College in Massachusetts, and Michael Zevin of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, is studying gravitational wave signals to see if this pathway is legitimate. According to Plunkett, the data show some intriguing results. “We’re finding that, for some of these merging black holes, it’s not their first rodeo,” said Plunkett. “Overall in the Universe, black holes are merging all the time. The question of how often they are repeatedly merging was pretty uncertain. Now we’re seeing a relatively consistent picture where there’s a decent percentage of black holes that are coming from this repeated pathway.”

How To Tell If It’s a First Merger or Not

The clues to the provenance of black holes in a merger lie in their spins. Think of the spin of a disk around a newly forming star. It has angular momentum. Some black holes have spin; others do not. A “first-time” black hole created in a supernova event creates a black hole with little to no spin. That’s because when the progenitor star dies, it loses much of its mass as well as its own spin. The resulting black hole shouldn’t have much spin, either.

According to Vitale, the scene changes when two black holes merge. It’s a more energetic event, and the collision should result in a second-generation black hole with a definite spin. “They would be spinning very fast, at about 70 percent their maximum possible spin,” Vitale said. That spin reveals the new black hole’s lineage, from two smaller ones. So, astronomers might start out looking for a duo of black holes about to collide. If one has a very high spin rate than its dance partner, then observers are looking at a pair where one black hole came from a collision of two smaller black holes.

Some merging black holes may be second-generation black holes that formed from the previous merging of two smaller black holes, according to a new study. Here’s an artist’s concept of the hierarchical formation of black holes. Credits: Credit: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/R. Hurt (IPAC)

Where Does This Happen?

Stellar-mass black holes can happen anywhere supermassive stars are dying in supernova explosions. But hierarchical mergers likely occur in very crowded environments. These are regions where stars are packed closely together—such as in clusters. “You might have a ton of stars whizzing around each other, and if some are massive and explode, they become black holes. The black holes continue to whizz around, and can capture each other and merge,” explained Plunkett. “This process can repeat potentially ad infinitum, by virtue of the fact that you have a ton of stars and black holes in this really dense environment.”

To find evidence of hierarchical mergers, the team looked at data in the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-4.0). This is a collection of data tracing gravitational wave detections made during the combined observatories’ fourth observing run. They looked for signals typical of hierarchical mergers of black holes. Specifically, the team wanted to catch the action just before the merger actually happens. It’s an interesting time. The black holes are spiraling in toward each other in a disk-like orbital plane. If their spins are perpendicular to the plane, the process of merger is fairly steady. But if the spins aren’t perpendicular, the disk takes on a distinct wobble. The wobble reveals information about the balance of the masses of the two black holes and their spins.

What the Collisions Reveal

Analysis of the data revealed numerous mergers that showed orbital wobbling that was likely caused by the collisions between first-generation and second-generation black holes. Extrapolate that out to mergers throughout the Universe, and it looks like about 14 percent of merging black holes have been down the same collision road at least twice. It turns out that black holes that have masses about 10 and 30 times that of the Sun were probably stellar-mass black holes created in supernova explosions. Interestingly, those of 20 and 40 solar masses (and above) were most likely to be second-generation black holes made from collisions of previous black holes.

How does that play out with the evolutionary story of the supermassive stars that form black holes? Plunkett points out that the violence of the supernova explosions may play a role. “One of the reasons why the 40-and-above regime is interesting is, stellar evolution theory predicts you shouldn’t be able to form black holes in that mass range at all from just a supernova,” Plunkett said. “We think supernovae from really massive stars end up being so violent that they leave no black holes at all above roughly 45 solar masses. Yet, we have seen black holes that are that massive. And the question is: Where did they come from?”

That’s a question that remains to be answered. In the meantime, this hierarchical merging of black holes over time may well explain some of the weirder black holes astronomers have discovered. Linking the black-hole mass spectrum to features in the spin distribution is a good way to identify the history of potential merger candidates as well as to understand the characteristics of existing black holes that exhibit strange spins. In the long run, studies of these characteristics will help astronomers tell the story of black hole evolution across the Universe.