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Re:Upper limits on partial Dyson spheres in the Milky Way by TaylorAlexander on Saturday February 19, 2022 @03:06AM (#30395279)
It's probably very difficult structurally to build an actual sphere, since the poles would not have any orbital velocity and the whole sphere would want to flatten. Unless there is a way to do some kind of anti-gravity that humans just haven't discovered (which is a possibility that seems plausible).

But there is also the Dyson swarm, which is like a starlink constellation orbiting a star and designed to collect as much energy as possible.

Anyway I don't know the answer to your question, but if we ignore structural problems with a sphere we could imagine a material a few atoms thick, like a giant carbon nanotube structure. Then one wonders how much material there is in Jupiter as an approximation of total matter in the solar system. I will leave the calculation as an exercise to the reader. ;)

Re:Upper limits on partial Dyson spheres in the Milky Way by Blammar on Saturday February 19, 2022 @04:05AM (#30395574)
I believe Dyson spheres don't rotate, so they just have to be able to handle the stress of the central sun pulling uniformly on the surface.

Per the Ringworld not being stable, I think the same math applies to the sphere as well as the Ring, so the sphere will need attitude jets to maintain position with respect to the central sun.

Dyson swarms seem drastically easier to construct. We could build one example of that habitat fairly soon!

Re:Upper limits on partial Dyson spheres in the Milky Way by TaylorAlexander on Saturday February 19, 2022 @04:11PM (#30400562)
Ahh a non-rotating sphere makes sense! If it is light enough then solar pressure could help keep it up too, and it could have openings to adjust pressure which would serve as attitude jets. Hmmm this does seem possible after all, thanks for the tips!