Researchers have calculated the 'Flavor Zone'—the exact distance from a star where starlight would cook a frozen pizza perfectly.
April 1, 2026
Original Paper
On The Detection of Digiorno-like Objects in the Flavor Zone
arXiv · 2603.28977
The Takeaway
Using the 'Digiorno-Like Object' as a model, this study explores whether we could detect advanced alien civilizations by looking for the heat signatures of stars being used directly for food preparation. It concludes that while starlight-cooked pizza is theoretically possible, our current telescopes aren't quite ready to spot it.
From the abstract
Aims: This work proposes a new SETI search methodology under the assumption that a sufficiently advanced civilization could skip the middle man of converting starlight to energy to food preparation, and could directly harness their star's energy for food prep. Methods: We define the concept of the Flavor Zone (FZ): the optimal distance from a star for cooking food. To develop this definition we propose the toy model of a Digiorno-Like Object (DLO) and define the FZ as the regime for optimal cook