The Dyson Sphere

Since Dyson's paper, many variant designs involving an artificial structure or series of structures to encompass a star have been proposed in exploratory engineering or described in science fiction, often under the name "Dyson sphere". Fictional depictions often describe a solid shell of matter enclosing a star – an arrangement Dyson himself considered impossible. The sphere he imagined consisted of a loose collection or swarm of objects traveling on independent orbits around the star, an arrangement that has become known as a Dyson Swarm.