Sam Falconer
THERE comes a point at which any advanced alien civilisation worth its salt has to dismantle a neighbouring planet for spare parts. This isn’t an act of vandalism, you understand, but rather a precursor to building an enormous solar power plant that surrounds its entire host star. What else would an ambitious alien society do to continue its expansion? How else would it meet its ever-increasing demand for energy?
This scenario, or something like it, is the founding principle of the search for alien megastructures, which in this case would look something like dark embers when viewed through infrared telescopes.…
