General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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I have an earth-like planet orbiting one of the stars in a binary system. I have learned that, for G-class stars, if the secondary star is 100AU from the primary one, I can expect the secondary st...
I have a planet orbiting one star in a binary system. When the planet is exactly between the two stars it will experience a double day; when the primary sun sets the secondary one rises, no overla...
In this question I asked about the lighting patterns from this system: A really helpful answer there explained when the planet is getting how much illumination. This question is about heat. On ea...
It is said that in dense rainforests, only 1% of sunlight (sometimes less) reaches the forest floor, which greatly restricts the types of plant and animal life that can survive there. My (limited) ...
If you're studying radio signals from Earth, is it possible to calculate whether a radio source is 'near' as in near Earth or 'very far away' as in somewhere far out in space from velocity, or velo...
Setting: "One Big Lie" Sci-fi RPG The lies in this setting are an extension of relativity with a couple of extra dimensions allowing for FTL/Backwards Time Travel, and Thaumons. Thaumons (Magic B...
I have seen many science fiction movies that depict traveling in space through wormholes. The appearance though, and the time it takes to cross a wormhole, tends to vary: On one hand, we have the...
How can a character explain baryon asymmetry (there is more matter than antimatter) by the universe being a simulation with a slightly imbalanced random number generator being employed at the point...
Is it possible that a planet/moon will have inverse direction comparing to the rest orbiting material? For example Mars would go in counter direction comparing to other planets in solar system. I...
I was thinking of a parallel universe in which the Planck constant has an exact value of zero. How would this effect the physics of that universe and how would it effect the development of that un...
First of all, in no way do I have advanced knowledge of particle physics, quantum mechanics, or any other necessary scientific concept for a full understanding of this question. Secondly, this is p...
Set during the Cold War period, the then-president rented five (5) flying saucers from the extraterrestrial aliens and a few training exercises were conducted in the air space above Roswell. My fat...
What will be the view of the sky and the distances between stars, living on a planet or in a habitat in a super galaxy that has merged with all its nearby galaxies in its cluster, at a time in the ...
I have done some research and so much contradict one another or I simply fail to understand. Do seasons occur on a tidally locked planet that isn't tilted on its axis?
I'm currently designing a world where the inhabitants see the Aurora Borealis on an almost nightly basis almost all the way to the equator. The lights are so strong they rarely see the stars beyond...
In my setting, one of the fallouts due to interstellar war between civilisations is that a planet's gravity can be removed. This capability is part of the setting's hyperspace mechanics so the exac...
I would like to have Earth slowly move away from the sun, taking somewhere between several months and a couple of years to reach the point where human life on the surface is no longer possible. (T...
As you can probably guess from the title, I have some questions about the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, especially how to use it to make plausible stars. Some questions: Can stars exist in the bl...
I have a roughly Earth-like planet in a solar system some distance from ours. The atmosphere of this planet is largely similar to that of Earth, but particularly, has a somewhat higher oxygen conte...
The Mokèlé-mbèmbé (meaning "one who stops the flow of rivers") is a legendary water-dwelling creature of Congo River basin folklore, loosely analogous to the Loch Ness Monster in Western culture. ...
What would be differently perceived from a person with broader visual spectrum than normal? So I've seen this question, especially the accepted answer, and it certainly is not what I'm looking for...
Apart of the Anatomically Correct Series Vanara The Vanara is a group of people who lives in the forest in the Hindu epic "Ramayana." In there, it describes them as human-like, with reference to...
I want to write a SF story where humans discover that a species of ET has caramel instead of blood and I need some biological information in order to develop it in a realistic way. For my story, i...
As the title: I want to know what kind of organs or modifications need for plants like tree to gain energy from lightning or electricity (and still fine or safe or alive of course). Since I have a...
So, I was writing an outline for the battle between a dragon and a bunch of humans. However, a key component of the humans' battle plan was to place a hidden stash of ballistae near the entrance wh...
Oh yes, it's Artifact Time! with Best Dad and Ozen the Immovable! If you watched Hairy Plotter and the Gas Chamber of Secrets, you probably remember the scene where the Horcrux of Adolf Hitler is ...
In the story I'm creating, a major weapon type of humanity will be Antimatter based weaponry. This is a fairly new technology, as antimatter production facilities have just reached the size and cap...
Leviathans are closely related to hydrophis spiralis. Some characteristics of these leviathans include: continuing to grow until they die and are able to grow almost as large as a blue whale are ...
I have this creatures which were hiding underground for millennia. They are, from the beginning of their history, exclusively nocturnal. They emerged back on surface after moon disappeared (irrel...
This is a follow up question to Sky of Earth and Seas of Sky I have a medieval fantasy setting where people live in a vast expanse of giant caves contained in a sort of giant Stanford torus. This...
In my world slimes are intelligent creatures of various sizes which can take the shape of anything they like and change color to camouflage. A slime can camouflage as floor , as a box, a snake or...
A little snippet from my story idea, for some context- "The Earth Government Collapses, caused by the cutoff of resources from the Colonies. Large-Scale war soon erupts, with Nuclear Weapons being...
Solitary humanoids aren't uncommon in works of fantasy/cryptozoology with Bigfoot coming to mind. What I want to know is What evolutionary pressures would lead to solitary humanoids? Some character...
So, I've decided that in my fantasy fiction, I want to have Megabara riders. Massive Capybaras, being ridden into a battle. I've done some basic research and I came across this extinct species tha...
So, after trying to make a few different world maps and not really feeling satisfied with them, I decided to attempt making a world a bit more from scratch, by adding in plate tectonics. Now, I did...
I have a really good question. Could it be possible for complex life to have existed in the Precambrian? I'm aware that only the fossilized remains of bacteria have been discovered from that time p...
My creature looks like a Psittacosaurus, with spikes all around its body, it hisses and uses its tail whip as a first. As last resort it will squirt an aimed stream of blood from its eyes toward it...
I know things like flashlight fish exist; things with luminescence and all that. But how strong could the light be? I have this cave dwelling species with three eyes except the middle one isn't ex...
In the story I'm writing, Earth gets destroyed and the few million humans that survive go to live on another Earth-like planet. Since the destruction of the planet, the humans do visit their star...
I'm writing creative text and I'm curious to know, just as possibility, can a galaxy by any chance be formed out of a black hole?
in the story i'm writing there is an island of mostly Monotremes which have diversified into a variety of ecological niches from giant platypus's to megafauna larger than the largest Placental Mamm...
How effective or possible would flying machines that are not powered by a machine be on a flat plain? I have a setting where much of the world is a relatively flat grassland, and the people have n...
I am building a setting that is essentially steampunk,being exact it would be pneumatic punk. What electronics and electronic equivalent exists, are primitive and extremely expensive. Thus the majo...
I'm writing a sci-fi world where, if you put it in simple words, a small percentage of population can manipulate the matter. I'm not going to dive into specifics, because I'm still working on WHY a...
I am currently writing the world, setting and characters for a project of mine called the ORION Project - a story set in a dystopian America in the near future of 2050, where the government has tak...
The planet is identical to Earth except for one twist. It is not axially rotated but has an elliptical orbit, causing longer, planetwide winters. I would just like to ask what the width of the hab...
A federation of alien spacefaring nations is doing basically the opposite of prime directive: they are jamming the Solar System, preventing us from leaving it. They are doing so by placing some de...
Could a creature use lightning (or any other source of electricity) as a sole energy source, and not need to eat? Would any additional organs be needed to store or use the electricity? I have a ra...
In an alternate Earth, early or midway in the Eocene Epoch, there debuted a family of angiosperm trees whose roots need to be completely submerged. As a result, the limit is that they can't germin...
First things first, a little backstory: Sometime between the Paleocene and Eocene epochs, there was a mysterious, sudden, dramatic rise in global temperature. This moment in time was known as the...
