A scientist has revealed a far-fetched plan to tow the sun and all of its orbiting planets for hundreds of light years using a futuristic spacecraft.

The so-called Caplan Thruster is a stellar engine that 'may be constructible by technologically advanced civilizations' in the future, according to the academic who thought up the idea.

Dr Matthew Caplan of Illinois State University devised the contraption and published it in a genuine scientific journal.

He says his design would be able to move the sun 50 light years in just one million years and allow us to avoid destruction from supernova or other celestial explosions.

The steady migration throughout the cosmos would also allow human beings to colonise various worlds as we drift pass them.

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The Caplan Thruster requires technology that has yet to be created. But the combination of a Dyson Sphere and nuclear engines to move the sun could save the Solar System from destruction from a supernova

The so-called Caplan Thruster is a stellar engine that 'may be constructible by technologically advanced civilizations' in the future, according to the academic who thought up the idea. Pictured, an artist's impression of how the craft would push the Solar System

The craft would be powered by two nuclear engines, one turning helium from the sun into radioactive oxygen at one billion degrees Celsius (1.8 billion degrees Fahrenheit) to push the star.

Another engine would turn hydrogen into a beam of accelerated particles and fire it back at the sun, ensuring the craft doesn't fly into the sun's surface.

By balancing its two jets of energy, the Caplan Thruster would act as a tugboat for the entire solar system because moving the sun means the planet's trapped in its orbit, including Earth, would also migrate.

The technology could see us move the Solar System to a different spot in our galaxy, or even beyond the Milky Way.

In a video posted on YouTube channel Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, the research team reveal that at full throttle the Solar System can be redirected in ten million years.

But the concept is currently far beyond existing technology.

As solar flares would be insufficient to provide the billion tonnes of fuel needed a second, a Dyson Sphere would have to be created.

A Dyson Sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that surrounds a star to harvest vast amounts of energy it produces - in both electromagnetic form and via solar flares.

The craft would be powered by two nuclear engines, one turning helium from the sun into radioactive oxygen and the other turning hydrogen into a beam of accelerated particles and fire it back at the sun, ensuring the craft doesn't fly into the sun's surface

In a video posted on YouTube channel Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, the research team reveal that at full throttle the design would be able to move the sun 50 light years in just one million years and allow us to avoid destruction from supernova or other celestial explosion

WHAT ARE 'DYSON SPHERES'? A proposed method for harnessing the power of an entire star is known as a Dyson sphere. First proposed by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960, this would be a swarm of satellites that surrounds a star. They could be an enclosed shell, or spacecraft spread out to gather its energy - known as a Dyson swarm. If such structures do exist, they would emit huge amounts of noticeable infrared radiation back on Earth. But as of yet, such a structure has not been detected. Although it is difficult to know how an advanced civilisation might look, one thing it would almost definitely require is large quantities of energy. Dark energy, which makes up 68 per cent of the universe, is causing our universe to expand at an accelerating rate. For an advanced civilisation to survive in 100 billion years time when the universe is dominated by dark energy, it will need to harvest stars to fuel its vast energy needs. One way it could do this is by building giant spheres or Dyson Spheres around stars to collect their light and power their existence, claims Dan Hooper, a physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Advertisement

This would then feed into one singular spacecraft with complex reactors and engines to produce two beams of energy.

This ability is far beyond current methods, with NASA's most cutting-edge solar mission - the lone Parker probe - costing a staggering $1.5billion and merely orbiting the sun.

The sheer amount of force created by the two engines would also tear apart existing materials with ease.

But the video narrator explains this technology is not for a civilisation that thinks in terms of decades or centuries, but in eons.

Although sucking energy and mass from the sun's surface would result in an extended lifespan for the star, it will eventually die.

And having the ability to shift the solar system quickly may be essential in ensuring it remains habitable beyond the lifespan of the sun.