In the 1960's when astronomers were discovering bright infrared objects in space, Physicist Freeman Dyson speculated that an advanced civilization might choose to disassemble the planets in their solar system and build a gigantic sphere encircling their star to capture all of its energy. The shell would orbit the star and although you would not see any light from the star, the shell itself would glow as a bright infrared source. As it turned out, a far more conventional explanation was that these were either ancient super giant stars cool enough for carbon and silicate 'soot' to condense in their atmospheres, or they were infant stars surrounded by their placental dust clouds. Over time, the evidence has favored infant stars and super giant stars.