Progress on IRAS-based Whole-Sky Dyson Sphere Search

A Dyson Sphere (DS) is a hypothetical construct of a star purposely shrouded by a thick swarm of broken-up planetary material to better utilize all of the stellar energy. A clean DS identification would give a signature for intelligence at work elsewhere in the galaxy. A comprehensive search for Dyson Spheres has been carried out using the IRAS Low Resolution Spectrometer data base. Only a few candidates have been found and even these are not compelling. This search imposes a significant constraint on one class of astroengineering projects since the IRAS search had enough sensitivity to see an infrared object with the power output of the sun out to 400 pc. This reach encompasses a region that contains more than a million solar type stars.