Technosignature Research Portal

A stellar engine, such as the Shkadov thruster named after Soviet aeronautics scientist Leonid Mikhailovich Shkadov, is a megastructure built around a star for the purpose of moving that star and any orbiting planets. Several variants of the Shkadov thruster have been hypothesized, including the Badescu-Cathcart engine, the Caplan thruster and the Star Tug.

Detectability

• The unusual movement of an artificially propelled star could be detectable when compared with the movement of adjacent stars.

Research

5-Oct-2022		Lazarus Stars: Numerical investigations of stellar evolution with star-lifting	Matthew T. Scoggins, David Kipping Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
15-Jul-2021		Strategies and Advice for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence	Jason T. Wright
8-Jul-2021		SETI in 2020	Jason T. Wright Acta Astronautica
5-Sep-2020		Constraints on the abundance of 0.01c stellar engines in the Milky Way	Manasvi Lingam, Abraham Loeb
3-Jul-2020		The Star Tug: An active stellar engine capable of accelerating a star to relativistic velocities	Alexander A. Svoronos Acta Astronautica
4-Sep-2019		Stellar engines: Design considerations for maximizing acceleration	Matthew E. Caplan Acta Astronautica
1-Dec-2017		Star lifting: An application for alien megastructures	G.L. Matloff Journal of the British Interplanetary Society
7-Jun-2013		On the Possibility of Detecting Class A Stellar Engines Using Exoplanet Transit Curves	Duncan H. Forgan Journal of the British Interplanetary Society
27-Sep-2005		Use of class A and class C stellar engines to control sun movement in the galaxy	, Richard B. Cathcart Acta Astronautica
27-Sep-2005		Stellar engines for kardashev's type II civilisations	Richard B. Cathcart, Viorel Badescu Acta Astronautica

Lazarus Stars: Numerical investigations of stellar evolution with star-lifting (5-Oct-2022) Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Strategies and Advice for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (15-Jul-2021)
SETI in 2020 (8-Jul-2021) Acta Astronautica
Constraints on the abundance of 0.01c stellar engines in the Milky Way Manasvi Lingam and Abraham Loeb (5-Sep-2020)
The Star Tug: An active stellar engine capable of accelerating a star to relativistic velocities Alexander A. Svoronos (3-Jul-2020) Acta Astronautica
Stellar engines: Design considerations for maximizing acceleration Matthew E. Caplan (4-Sep-2019) Acta Astronautica
Star lifting: An application for alien megastructures G.L. Matloff (1-Dec-2017) Journal of the British Interplanetary Society
On the Possibility of Detecting Class A Stellar Engines Using Exoplanet Transit Curves Duncan H. Forgan (7-Jun-2013) Journal of the British Interplanetary Society
Use of class A and class C stellar engines to control sun movement in the galaxy Viorel Badescua, Richard B. Cathcart (27-Sep-2005) Acta Astronautica
Stellar engines for kardashev's type II civilisations Viorel Badescu, Richard B. Cathcart (27-Sep-2005) Acta Astronautica