How to Spot Alien Civilizations Hoarding Their Suns: Milky Way News

EARTH, Laniakea Supercluster—Here’s a thought experiment: if a technologically advanced civilization somewhere out in the cosmos wrapped its star in a giant energy-harvesting shell, would humans be able to spot it?

According to a new research paper, posted to the preprint server arXiv in July 2026 and not yet peer-reviewed, written by Amirnezam Amiri of the University of Arkansas, working with Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, the answer should be yes—as long as we know exactly what to look for.

The research examined the concept of the so-called Dyson Spheres: hypothetical megastructures that would encase a star and capture the bulk of its energy, and exactly the kind of engineering project a civilization thousands of years ahead of ours might undertake. The paper sets out the observational signatures a real Dyson Sphere would leave behind, and where in the sky we should be pointing telescopes to find one.

“I was drawn to Dyson spheres because they connect the search for extraterrestrial intelligence with observational astrophysics. I find it fascinating that we can take a seemingly speculative question about advanced civilizations and use fundamental physics to make testable predictions about what we might actually observe,” Amiri told Milky Way News.

The concept of Dyson Spheres was first proposed in 1960, by Freeman Dyson, a British-American theoretical physicist. He argued that any society advanced enough to keep expanding its energy use would eventually run up against the total output of its home star, and that the natural engineering solution was to capture as much of that starlight as possible. The theory grew significantly in popularity, evolving from the idea of one large energy-absorbing mechanism surrounding a star, to the likelihood of several small mechanisms in close proximity to each other.

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Recently, Amiri determined clues that could help scientists identify Dyson Spheres if they’re out there, and which stars they’re most likely to orbit. According to his research, a Dyson Sphere would radiate the excess energy absorbed from a star back out as infrared light, which telescopes can pick up. The Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram allows scientists to examine stellar temperature against luminosity. A Dyson Sphere would reduce a star’s temperature, putting it on the cooler side of the diagram.

Amiri said his work on Dyson Spheres is relatively recent and the idea for the study developed over the last few years with the help of Loeb. He said they wanted to understand how hypothetical Dyson spheres around low-luminosity stars could be identified through their observable properties.

Some other visual indicators of the presence of a Dyson Sphere would be the reduced silicate emission, which appears as dust around the star. Gaps in a star’s brightness are another indicator, particularly if a Dyson Sphere is constructed of many small pieces in orbit, as the gaps would let only a portion of the light through at any given time.

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According to Amiri, Red M-Dwarfs and White Dwarfs—which look similar to the end of E.T.'s finger—would be the most likely to host Dyson Spheres. This is because these stars are smaller, cooler, more common, and longer lasting. Additionally, they would require less material to construct a Dyson Sphere around.

Amiri explained that he used fundamental principles of thermal equilibrium and energy conservation to calculate the expected temperatures, luminosities, and infrared emission of hypothetical Dyson spheres around different types of stars. From there, he examined how such systems would appear observationally, particularly around White Dwarfs and M-Dwarfs.

While Amiri may not have identified an actual Dyson Sphere, his work applying well-established physical principles to a hypothetical problem made their existence seem more realistic. He told Milky Way News that he was excited to see a question as speculative as a Dyson Sphere could be approached quantitatively.

The next step in his research will be connecting these theoretical predictions with real astronomical data and optical/infrared surveys using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and, in the near future, the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). He would like to explore whether existing or future observations can identify unusual objects that could be interesting candidates for further investigation.

“I don't think my current research directly brings us closer to communication with extraterrestrial life, and it does not provide evidence that such life exists. However, it may help us better understand what we should look for if technologically advanced civilizations exist elsewhere in the Universe,” Amiri said.

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Dyson Spheres remain entirely hypothetical. Every candidate previously flagged in the astronomical literature—most famously the strange dimming pattern of Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) in 2015—has eventually been explained by natural phenomena such as orbiting dust. Amiri's paper does not claim otherwise. Its contribution is a cleaner rulebook for what the real thing would look like, not evidence that anyone has found one.

So as humans continue to search for life beyond our planet, perhaps it’s best to skip the hunt for spaceships and little green men, and instead keep an eye out for a star that’s quietly hoarding its own light.