Scientists Map Search for Alien Megastructures Around Black Holes

More than two dozen scientists gathered at MIT's Center for Brains, Minds & Machines on June 3-4, 2025, to transform one of astronomy's most speculative concepts into a search grounded in detectable physics. The Dyson Minds 2025 Workshop brought together astronomers, astrophysicists, AI experts, and engineers to establish concrete criteria for identifying Dyson spheres built around supermassive black holes.

Organized by Penn State University, MIT, and The Ultraintelligence Foundation (associated with researcher Van Hunter Adams), the workshop produced findings published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (PASP 138 046001, April 2026). Lead author Olivia Curtis, a postdoctoral fellow at the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center (PSETI), emphasized the team's commitment to physical observables over speculation.

Dyson spheres, originally proposed by physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960, represent hypothetical megastructures that advanced civilizations could construct to harvest stellar energy, marking a transition to Type II on the Kardashev Scale. While traditionally envisioned around stars, the workshop focused on supermassive black holes as potentially superior energy sources due to their extreme output, particularly from relativistic jets.

The physics constraining such structures are severe. Researchers calculated that a Dyson sphere orbiting a black hole would need to maintain a distance of approximately one parsec—about three light-years—to avoid melting from intense radiation. At such distances, the workshop noted, transmitting a zettabyte of information by physically transporting a storage device could prove faster than beaming data across the gap.

The search strategy now centers on existing astronomical datasets. Teams are analyzing infrared signatures from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), while also examining data from the Event Horizon Telescope for outliers or perturbations in images of M87 and Sagittarius A, the supermassive black holes at the centers of Messier 87 and our own Milky Way galaxy.

The workshop's framework serves a dual purpose. Even if no technosignatures emerge, defining these observables helps astronomers distinguish natural black hole behavior from potential anomalies, sharpening understanding of accretion physics, jet dynamics, and infrared emissions in extreme gravitational environments.

Curtis acknowledged the speculative nature of the work while defending its scientific merit. The approach treats alien technology as a hypothesis of last resort, requiring elimination of all natural explanations before consideration. Yet by establishing measurable criteria, the researchers have moved the conversation from science fiction toward testable astronomy.

The workshop represents a broader shift in SETI methodology. Rather than searching exclusively for radio signals or optical pulses, astronomers are increasingly examining astrophysical datasets for engineering signatures indicating civilizations capable of manipulating energy at stellar or galactic scales. The Dyson Minds collaboration demonstrates that even extraordinary claims can face ordinary scientific scrutiny—provided researchers commit to physical facts and observable consequences.