Kardashev Scale
Classification of hypothetical civilizations by their energy use, proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964:
- Type I: harnesses the total energy reaching its home planet (~10¹⁶ W for Earth).
- Type II: harnesses the total energy of its host star (~10²⁶ W; e.g., a Dyson sphere).
- Type III: harnesses the total energy of its host galaxy (~10³⁶ W).
Used as a yardstick for both speculative engineering scales and SETI / technosignatures detection volumes.
Relevance to UAP / astrobiology vault
- The May 2026 BRaTs framework (src-brats-radio-technosignatures-2026-05, michael-a-garrett) argues that broadband radio leakage from a Kardashev Type I civilization should be detectable out to ~100 pc using next-gen wide-field surveys (ska) with vlbi follow-up.
- Existing narrowband SETI volumes for Type I leakage have been much smaller; the broadband-Doppler-insensitive deep-field strategy extends reach by enabling long integrations on the same patch of sky.