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602Zoo t1_j1noldb wrote

Reply to comment by ncastleJC in Is the Milky Way... Normal? by cciccitrixx

A Dyson sphere doesn't need a bunch of mass. It can be thinly spread out and enough material could be harvested from our solar system to build one.

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wbsgrepit t1_j1obrtj wrote

I think you are greatly missed under estimating the amount of ‘material’ that would be needed. At a distance that could be made even theoretically stable against the gravity of the sun you would need to harvest solar systems of ‘material’. Never mind you would need specific types of material not just any atoms — assuming you are spending 1000s of generations of effort (if not more) for something more worthwhile than a simple passive enclosure.

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602Zoo t1_j1orrzr wrote

I'm not underestimating the amount of material it would take to encircle the sun. Between the planets, moons, asteroids, and comets including oort cloud objects we would have enough material to encircle the sun many times over.

The gathering of said materials would be the issue not their abundance. As you stated, it would take multiple generations to complete the project of gathering minerals and forging them into something useful. That would be our road block, the solor system has more than enough to build the structure but we may not have the discipline to coordinate the resources and manpower for such an undertaking.

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wbsgrepit t1_j1p84jx wrote

I mean it is estimated that there is roughly 10^57 atoms in our solar system bodies not including the sun. Thats all types of atoms (including argon, helium etc) -- but lets assume they are all of the most optimal material to make a 1 atom thick sphere at a distance from the sun that would not collapse or blow apart from gravitational forces or solar winds. You would run out of atoms before completing half of such a sphere. And to what end? The sphere would not do anything nor would you have a planet to power as you just used all of the available atoms to construct your partial sphere..

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602Zoo t1_j1rddgt wrote

We don't need to build a solid structure around the sun just a loose formation of satellites. The real question would be is how dense do these satellites have to be to create an effective Dyson sphere.

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