TYPE 2 CIVILIZATION ON THE KARDASHEV SCALE: ABLE TO CONTROL A STAR
In the studies to determine how much energy a civilization much
more advanced than ours would require, a measure called "The Kardashev scale"
emerges. It establishes the capabilities that each type of civilization could have.
In this way, a type 1 civilization could harness all the energy of its planet,
while a type 2 civilization could harness all the power of a star, but what technologies would they
need to do this? "Introduction"
The Kardashev scale was invented by the Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev
who tried to propose a way to facilitate the search for extraterrestrial life.
In this scale, Kardashiev suggested different types of totally theoretical
extraterrestrial civilizations based on human civilization's needs throughout history.
While as human beings, we have basic needs such as eating or sleeping,
as a civilization, a need arises that grows as civilization does, and this need is energy.
Throughout history, the different methods to obtain energy have improved and diversified.
Today, we can get energy from almost all natural phenomena, water, sun, air, heat from the earth.
We have even developed artificial methods of energy generation such as nuclear energy.
Kardashiev deduced that as a civilization grows, its energy need so does it, that's how he created
the "Kardashev Scale," It divides 3 types of civilizations based on their energy needs.
TYPE 1: The type 1 civilization is a civilization capable of taking advantage of the total energy
of its home planet; in this scenario, the human civilization cannot yet be classified as type 1
since we are not yet able to take advantage of the total energy provided by the earth.
According to scientist Michio Kaku at the rate we currently have, human civilization
will become type 1 in about 100 years. TYPE 2: A Type 2 civilization on the
Kardashev scale would harness the total energy of a star system.
TYPE 3: And finally, a Type 3 civilization would be able to
harness the total energy of its home galaxy. In past videos, we talked about the type 1
civilization; today, we will delve into the capabilities that a type 2 civilization could have
and how much is missing for human society to reach that point.
ENERGY
All types of civilization proposed by Kardashev are based on the energy need of each civilization;
this energy is measured in Watts (W). Currently, human civilization has an
energy need of 175,249 TeraWats/hour (TWh), representing 0.73% on the Kardashev scale; that
is, humanity's energy need does not yet reach the requirement that a type 1 civilization would have.
ENERGY NEED OF A TYPE 2 CIVILIZATION
When a type 1 civilization has managed to completely control its planet and meet the
energy needs of all its inhabitants, it will proceed to expand throughout its star system.
This includes colonizing the planets closest to their home planet, terraforming both planets and
natural satellites, and harnessing minerals from asteroids and comets with space mining,
a process similar to the mining we do on earth but carried to bodies beyond the planet.
A Type 2 civilization would use the same energy harvesting techniques to exploit the resources
of all available planets and gradually send spacecraft to explore stars near their star system
and take advantage of the resources and minerals of other star systems.
As a Type 2 civilization began to expand throughout its star system and nearby star
systems, the lack of energy to move over such great distances would also become apparent.
But above all, they would need energy to power spaceships, machines that are
responsible for terraforming neighboring planets, robots, artificial intelligence,
supercomputers, and of course, to supply the needs of all members of civilization.
According to Kardashev, this energy need would be at least 1026 W, that is, an energetic quantity
that could not be covered or by taking advantage of the energy of all the planets combined,
the only way to meet the demand for so much power would be direct with a star.
Assuming a civilization living in a star system with a single star like us,
a star the size of the sun would be enough to supply this energy for several billion years.
For this, they would have to create one of the most famous structures in the fictional world.
DYSON SPHERE The Dyson sphere
is a hypothetical megastructure that would be able to surround a star to harness its energy;
this was first theorized by science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon in his novel Star Maker (1937),
in which he described "every solar system in the galaxy would be surrounded by a gauze of
light traps, that focuses on the solar energy that escaped to be used by the intelligent."
This concept was later popularized by Freeman Dyson, an English mathematical physicist famous
for searching for extraterrestrial life. Dyson theorized that the structures devised
by Stapledon could be physically possible and, if they exist, could be an excellent way to detect
the existence of intelligent civilizations in our universe since such a structure would
emit a peculiar form of infrared radiation that no other body in the universe can emit.
As Stapledon did not give any name to the megastructures of his novel,
the widespread public began to call them "Dyson's Sphere,"
believing that it had been Freeman Dyson who had invented them.
A Type 2 civilization would have the skills, knowledge, and, above all,
the need to create this megastructure around its star to make the most of its energy.
Although the exact shape that this structure could have has not been proposed,
it is known that it should only partially cover the entire star since if it is completely covered,
the whole star system will cool down, putting at risk the colonies of the terraformed planets.
In this way, a Dyson sphere would have the shape of a spherical cage
made by gigantic mobile structures much larger than a planet that would be in constant rotation
at a very close distance from the star, capturing all the radiation
and storing the energy for be later used for the purposes that civilization wants.
This energy will likely be stored by small spacecraft coupled to the Dyson sphere.
Once filled with maximum energy capacity, they will be separated from the structure
to carry this energy to the farthest regions of the solar system where the star's light is dim.
A civilization that wanted to build this megastructure would have to take a space mining
process to an unprecedented scale; they would have to move vast amounts of matter
since the materials of a single planet would be insufficient to build the structure.
They would have to take advantage of all the materials provided by the asteroid belts
farthest from the solar system and carry chunks of minerals and rocks
from the outskirts of the star system to the center, which would require immense
numbers of workers, robots to help workers and of course, an enormous amount of energy.
Another way to take advantage of it would be to use it to build more parts of the structure
and make it bigger and bigger so that the type 2 civilization would develop mainly around the star,
and once reached some control over that energy; they would proceed to do things that for now
are unimaginable to us, among some of those things are:
1. STAR LIFTING A Type 2 civilization on the Kardasev
scale that has built a Dyson sphere around its star would be able to literally tear off a
piece of its principal star and take it elsewhere. Although it sounds strange, this procedure happens
naturally in the universe; when two stars get too close, the gravitational attraction begins to tear
pieces of the other until, in the end, one of the stars is left with almost all the matter of both.
During this process, the chunks of one star are absorbed by the other,
and the star from which the matter is being ripped out is eventually left with the core exposed,
while the other star further gains mass and becomes much more significant.
A civilization that had complete control over its star could do this.
Tear off a piece of its star and take it to the farthest areas of the solar system for
its purposes, such as powering an asteroid mine in the most distant region of the star system
or moving large bodies with the strong gravitational pull that the piece of a star has.
2. EFFICIENT TRANSPORT One of the applications that could have
to place a Dyson sphere and efficient energy use would be to produce antimatter on a large scale.
Currently, humanity is already capable of producing antimatter, but with our
current technology, it would take hundreds of billions of years to make a single kilogram.
A type 2 civilization could take advantage of star lifting for
antimatter production. When tearing off pieces of its star,
immense amounts of energy would be used; this same energy would have as a byproduct of antimatter.
As we mentioned in a previous video about"The Different Ways, Aliens Could Reach Earth,"
one of the most efficient fuels for traveling the universe is antimatter.
This would be the perfect fuel for a Type 2 civilization that wants to transport large
amounts of energy and materials throughout the solar system quickly and efficiently.
Since other fuels such as chemicals would not provide enough thrust to
quickly move throughout the star system. Antimatter would serve to power their
spacecraft and provide sufficient energy to the machines and supercomputers responsible for all
the terraforming processes of other planets. And in other, more apparent instances,
antimatter would provide a source of energy for those areas too far from the star, areas that
would usually be too cold. 3. MOVE PLANETS
Although, for now, human civilization is not even capable of moving asteroids,
a Type 2 civilization would have the power to move asteroids, comets, and even planets.
With the full harnessing of their star's energy and star lifting to tear off pieces of their star,
they would also have control over huge gravitational pull fields.
Recall that the force of gravitational attraction is directly proportional to the amount of matter;
a civilization capable of making a megastructure around a star
would have the ability to move immense bodies the size of planets using gravitational attraction.
In this way, they could place all the planets of their solar system
in the star system's habitable zone so that they all can host life and thus meet the demand for
space for all individuals of civilization. They could also place gaseous planets away
from habitable zones to shield asteroids that might shoot out due to space mining.
Or they could even collide asteroids on very cold planets to warm them faster, dock them with a
couple of natural satellites, among many other things a type 2 civilization could do with the
planets in its solar system whatever it wanted. And in a larger scenario, they would be able to
place all the planets in their star system in a tiny region to surround their main planet,
creating a kind of shield made of planets to protect the home planet.
4. MOVING THE ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM But the thing does not stop there;
a type 2 civilization on the Kardashev scale could move entire planets and advance the
solar system as a whole and take it elsewhere. By fully controlling the energy and gravity
of its main star, this civilization could shape its star system and change the path
it moves around the galaxy it is in. This way, they would not need to move
to other star systems with spacecraft, as the entire star system would be their spacecraft.
This shows us that a Type 2 civilization goes far beyond
what a Type 1 civilization could even imagine. While a Type 1 civilization could move continents,
a Type 2 civilization could move planets. While a type 1 civilization could change the
direction of its planet, a type civilization could change the direction of the entire star system.
MULTIPLE WAKE SYSTEMS So far, we have talked about a scenario
in which a type 2 civilization could harness the energy of a single star, but in the universe,
most systems have more than one star, Let's take as an example the star
system closest to our Alpha Centauri; this star system contains 3 stars,
although two of them are smaller than the sun, together the 3 have much more mass than the sun.
A civilization developing in a star system with more than one star could do everything
mentioned above but multiply by 2 or 3 stars. For now, there is no evidence that there is
a civilization with these characteristics in our galaxy or the observable universe.
Still, it would be a civilization worthy of fear if it existed without a doubt.
Being capable of moving planets and repositioning stars is the closest thing to gods we can imagine.
But even a Type 2 civilization is small compared to a Type 3 civilization
that would be able to move a solar system and move an entire galaxy.
If you want to know all the capabilities of a civilization of this type,
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