The dyson sphere is an hypothetical spherical structure centered around a star. inspired by a science fiction story, physicist freeman dyson described such a structure for the first time in a scientific paper in 1959. his basic idea consisted of an artificial spherical structure of matter built around a star at a distance comparable to a planetary orbit, with the purpose of capturing the energy radiated by the star and reusing it for industrial purposes. assume the mass of the sun to be 2.00×1030 kg .