"The Crystal Spheres" is a science fiction short story by American writer David Brin, originally published in the January 1984 issue of Analog and collected in The River of Time.
Humanity's first attempt at interstellar space travel ends in disaster as the ship is destroyed near the edge of the Solar System by a transparent barrier.
Humanity is thus prevented from expanding and colonizing the universe, as well as communicating with any intelligent life that is inside such a sphere.
The main character takes part in an expedition to a newly discovered habitable solar system with a shattered sphere.
It is also discovered that the Nataral chose to go into a kind of suspended animation around a black hole, joining two even earlier species, to wait for the other civilizations of the universe to develop interstellar flight capabilities.