The Kardashev scale is a method of classifying a civilization's level of technological advancement according to the total amount of energy it is able to harness, proposed by the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964. A Type I civilization can command roughly the total energy available on its home planet, a Type II civilization can harness the total output of its home star, and a Type III civilization can harness the output of its entire home galaxy, with human civilization currently well below Type I. The scale is used mainly as a conceptual framework in discussions of astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence rather than as a precise measurement, since no civilization beyond Earth's has ever been observed to calibrate it against.
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1. Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles)
Wikimedia FoundationWikipedia, Kardashev scale, lead section, first sentence
The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is capable of harnessing and using.
Wikipedia, Kardashev scale, lead section, second sentence
The measure was proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964, forming the basis for a series of papers proposing ways to detect super civilizations and direct the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
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