Rather than a rigid shell (structurally implausible), a realistic Dyson swarm is a cloud of independently orbiting solar collectors that together intercept a fraction of a star's total power output.
T = 2π·√(R³ / (G·M_star)) (Kepler's third law — orbital period)
Coverage ≈ N · A_panel / (4πR²) (fraction of the sphere's area covered)
P_captured = Coverage · L_star
- Collector count — number of independent solar-collector satellites in the swarm.
- Orbital radius — distance of the swarm shell from the star; larger radius needs far more collectors for the same coverage.
- Collector panel size — physical size of each panel, directly increasing the area (and thus power) captured per unit.
- Time scale — speeds up or slows down orbital motion for visualization.
- View toggle — switches between a structural color scheme and an "energy view" heat-map of capture intensity.
Real-world relevance: Dyson swarms (rather than solid Dyson spheres) are the version most seriously discussed in megastructure engineering literature, since a solid shell around a star is not gravitationally or structurally stable with any known material.