Scientists Believe Mysterious Objects Found In The Milky Way Could Be Alien Megastructures

A theory proposed decades ago might just have been proven correct recently.

Back in 1960, Freeman Dyson, a British-American physicist, introduced a groundbreaking idea. 

He theorized that advanced civilizations might be capable of constructing megastructures known as Dyson spheres, designed to capture radiation energy from their host stars in space.

A crucial aspect of Dyson's theory was that these structures would likely emit 'waste heat detectable as infrared radiation'.

Dyson suggested there may be such thing as alien megastructures. 3D Illustration Getty Images/NASA

When Dyson originally wrote his paper on the subject, he posited that this waste heat could be a key indicator for future researchers in their quest to find extraterrestrial life.

Dyson's son, George Dyson, a technology writer and author, shared with CNN:

"Scientists (at the time) were largely receptive, not to the likelihood that alien civilizations would be found to exist, but that a search for waste heat would be a good place to look."

Fast forward to the present, leveraging contemporary technology, scientists have embarked on a quest to discover these Dyson spheres.

They've utilized historical data from telescopes capable of detecting infrared signatures.

The aim was to identify potential Dyson spheres by looking for unusual infrared heat signatures near stars that couldn't be explained by any other means.

Indeed, they have found some interesting results.

Matías Suazo, the lead study author and a doctoral student in the department of physics and astronomy at Uppsala University in Sweden, shared details about their methodology:

"We started with a sample of 5 million stars, and we applied filters to try to get rid of as much data contamination as possible."

However, he noted that it's not yet confirmed whether what they've found are truly Dyson spheres. 

"So far, we have seven sources that we know are glowing in the infrared but we don’t know why, so they stand out," Suazo explained.

The new study looked at 5 million stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Getty Images

According to his study, published last month, the seven objects of interest are M-dwarfs—stars that are smaller and have less mass than the sun.

While the glowing infrared signals could potentially indicate the presence of Dyson spheres, there are also natural phenomena that could explain these observations.

These natural explanations might disqualify them as candidates.

The findings are certainly captivating, but as Suazo advises, it's best not to jump to conclusions just yet.

Meanwhile, a separate research group from the International School for Advanced Studies in Italy has identified 53 stars exhibiting unusual mid-infrared emissions.

This finding was reported by Popular Mechanics.

These findings further add to the intrigue around the potential existence of Dyson spheres, yet caution remains due to the possibility of natural explanations.