(Source: popfop)
A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure originally described by Freeman Dyson. Such a “sphere” would be a system of orbiting solar power satellites meant to completely encompass a star and capture most or all of its energy output. Dyson speculated that such structures would be the logical consequence of the long-term survival and escalating energy needs of a technological civilization, and proposed that searching for evidence of the existence of such structures might lead to the detection of advanced intelligent extraterrestrial life.
A Dyson Ring — the simplest form of the Dyson Swarm — to scale. Orbit is 1 AU in radius, collectors are 1.0×107 km in diameter (~25× the Earth–Moon distance), spaced 3 degrees from center to center around the orbital circle.
A relatively simple arrangement of multiple Dyson Rings of the type pictured above, to form a more complex Dyson Swarm. Rings’ orbital radii are spaced 1.5×107 km with regard to one another, but average orbital radius is still 1 AU. Rings are rotated 15 degrees relative to one another, around a common axis of rotation.
A Dyson Bubble: an arrangement of statites around a star, in a non-orbital pattern. As long as a statite has an unobstructed line-of-sight to its star, it can hover at any point in space near its star. This relatively simple arrangement is only one of an infinite number of possible statite configurations, and is meant as a contrast for a Dyson Swarm only. Statites are pictured as the same size as the collectors pictured above, and arranged at a uniform 1 AU distance from the star.
