[bsmith89]

No; not without heating up (since the inside of the sphere can't radiate it back to the star at the center). As the sphere heats up it radiates outwards in increasingly energetic spectra. Since entropy (in this case in the form of unusable heat) always goes up, the sphere couldn't stay dark forever.

[yellowapple]

What about radiating it in a specific direction (one that just happens to be away from us)?

[contravariant]

Heat radiates in all directions by definition.

It is theoretically possible to direct it to some extent (at the cost of raising entropy elsewhere) but it would require massive effort for no good reason.

[ClumsyPilot]

You could never direct 100% of it, since any matter not at absolute zero has to radiate longer wavelengths.

Once you do direct it, someone will still see you if they are in the path of the beam. It appears to be an exercise in futility.

[yellowapple]

> You could never direct 100% of it

No, but you could direct enough of it that anything left is too dim to see unless you've got really good eyes ("eyes" in this case being whatever sensors we're using to detect black-body radiation).

> someone will still see you if they are in the path of the beam.

Space is big. What's the chance that we'd actually cross paths with that beam?

On the other hand, space is big. That beam would probably hit something eventually, and I suspect in that case we might pick up a reflection.

> It appears to be an exercise in futility.

Assuming the point is actually to hide. Maybe instead it's an attempt to recapture some of that energy otherwise lost as heat?

[pixl97]

Beam it at a black hole

[phinnaeus]

Hopefully it's a special kind of black hole like the one mentioned in the article. Wait...

[haolez]

That was one of the alternatives that I was thinking as well :)