Hypothetical Megastructures: The Steller Engines by Kumud Singh

Who isn’t an avenger fan? I know, I am. And one of their masterpieces, the film Avengers: Infinity War, which show a series of scenes that took place at Nidavellir, which according to Marvel Cinematic Universe is a neutron star and one of the Nine Realms orbited by a multi-ringed structure which serves as a homeland to many Dwarves. And as we know Nidavellir’s forge harnesses the power of the blazing neutron star which is the birth place of Thor’s hammer and The Stormbreaker which was made by a dwarf Eitri. Now that is just a movie, a fictional story, right? What if I told you that there have been many fictional stories talking about Steller Engines, like the 1937, Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker, or be it Stephen Baxter’s novel Manifold: Space, or be it Larry Niven’s novel Bowl of Heaven. But that’s not the fascinating part of it.

The interesting part about all of it is that these hypothetical megastructures are not fictional anymore, they exist as a concept introduced by Badescu and Cathcart, and it uses a star’s radiation to create usable energy and this energy is so huge that it produces a thrust which in turn accelerates the star to move. And in such conditions, anything that is orbiting it as a result of its magnetic field moves with it in the same direction. And in our case the giant star with so much energy and radiation is the Sun, whose radiation can be used to create a thrust capable of moving not only the Sun but also everything that revolves around in its gravitational field which is the whole solar system.

So, if in the near future conditions like a hit of a vast asteroid or a star, very close to us, undergoing Supernova may occur, we would be able to change our space in the Universe. We are very advanced in our space knowledge, where our scientist and space experts can figure out the existence of many circumstances like these millions of years before. But is knowing the existence of such devastating events enough if it would mean the end of the planet Earth and the solar system along with it? Absolutely not, because with stellar engines, WE CAN MOVE THE ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM AND DODGE THE BULLETS .

There are different models proposed for this work, but the one that is most likely to work on the current understanding of physics, in theory and practically in near future, is the Shkadov Thruster.

The Shkadov thruster or the Class A stellar engines was proposed by scientist Dr. Leonid Mikhailovich Shkadov, which is a giant curved mirror, which is parabolic in shape and reflects enough of the photons in the Sun’s solar radiation to get it moving from its coordinates. And since it reflects the light in one direction, the limit is that this type of stellar engine is able to move the solar system in only one axis.

Also, if the stream of light is in this way as the picture on the side, there is a very high risk factor that it will burn an entire planet that comes in its way with the amount of heat it produces so, logically the best way to place this mirror would be as shown in the picture below. But that gives us one more limitation and that is to be able to move the solar system in the X-axis , we would be limited to the movement of the solar system in the Y-axis only.

And limitations are what gives us the motivation to work better, thus the most advanced and the most perfect stellar engine The Caplan thruster was introduced. It was designed by the scientist, astrophysicist, Matthew Caplan who was from Illinois State University. Well, it sits close to the sun and uses Sun’s electromagnetic fields to gather hydrogen and helium from the solar winds as a fuel. It as a result powers two jets at a time. One uses helium and the other uses hydrogen. The one that uses helium creates radioactive oxygen through fusion reactor which helps the Caplan Thruster to move forward. And the other that uses hydrogen helps in keeping the Caplan Thruster at a distance from the Sun and to push the Sun forward. It's kind of a balanced situation where the Sun powers the Caplan thruster to move forward and to not come clashing in itself which as a result moves the solar system.

Also just because solar winds alone would be a little light to move the solar system, one would need the involvement of some kind of Dyson Sphere structure, which concentrates the sunlight into one specific spot on the Sun to increase its temperature at a specific spot to increase the temperature even further which in turn increases the power of solar winds. Its another advantage is that its faster that the other stellar engines so far, and also it can move the solar system in any direction.

So, once we are done exploring the universe we can see, it's time to have the change in the cosmic neighbourhood we have and explore more of this universe hidden in dark matter. And if in near future we have these “hypothetical megastructures” ready, I think it's time to say,

Happy Exploring!!