Dyson swarms are more likely. We even have a tiny one with our satellites using solar power in a heliocentric orbit. (Dyson spheres are basically impossible.) But we could theoretically detect either in infrared since if it doesn’t give off waste heat, it’d all heat up and melt.
That being said, I’m personally of the opinion this is a waste of time. Not to get all Fermi Paradox but it’s pretty sci fi brained to think any other species out there is as dumb as we are. Space sucks. You die super fast there. Everything had to align just right for Earth to make a bunch of dumb fuck apes willing to strap themselves onto rockets, have a planet small enough that the rocket could even overcome gravity to enter orbit using chemical rockets, and a World War and Cold War to accelerate things.
Time will always be the great filter. Even if we did spot a Dyson swarm, we have no feasible way to contact anything on a practice timescale. Any speck of civilization we detect will be hundreds of thousands of years out of date at best, billions at worst. Life in the universe, imo, is basically guaranteed. If it happened once, it can happen again. Meaningful contact between separately evolved concurrent sapient species? Not likely.
Dyson swarms are more likely. We even have a tiny one with our satellites using solar power in a heliocentric orbit. (Dyson spheres are basically impossible.) But we could theoretically detect either in infrared since if it doesn’t give off waste heat, it’d all heat up and melt.
That being said, I’m personally of the opinion this is a waste of time. Not to get all Fermi Paradox but it’s pretty sci fi brained to think any other species out there is as dumb as we are. Space sucks. You die super fast there. Everything had to align just right for Earth to make a bunch of dumb fuck apes willing to strap themselves onto rockets, have a planet small enough that the rocket could even overcome gravity to enter orbit using chemical rockets, and a World War and Cold War to accelerate things.
Time will always be the great filter. Even if we did spot a Dyson swarm, we have no feasible way to contact anything on a practice timescale. Any speck of civilization we detect will be hundreds of thousands of years out of date at best, billions at worst. Life in the universe, imo, is basically guaranteed. If it happened once, it can happen again. Meaningful contact between separately evolved concurrent sapient species? Not likely.