🌕 Dyson swarms and spheres

In 1960 the physicist Freeman Dyson suggested that an advanced civilisation would surround its star with collectors to catch its light — and that we could find such civilisations by looking for stars that glow in infrared, the waste heat of the collectors.

• A Dyson Swarm is many separate collectors orbiting the star. It could be built piece by piece.
• A solid Dyson Sphere is probably impossible — no material is strong enough, and it would drift into the star. Engineers think of it as a very dense swarm.
• Astronomers have searched for strange infrared stars; so far nothing has been confirmed.