Posts tagged astronomy
I recently saw this answers where it was suggested that the galactic core could illuminate a planet suffiently to make sure it is always summer on one side of the planet. This got me curious and af...
The year of this planet is 1,000 earth-days-long around its star, and its night lasts half a year. Can it support life such as Earth? With humans and lush forests and liquid water and good tempe...
Let's say there is another planet in our solar system that harbours sentient life and this sentient life can build castles, buildings, and other such structures. When would we notice that? We ca...
Could 2 moons that orbit same terrestrial planet never see each other if they orbit the planet at same time? Moons have different mass and gravity.
I understand an interstellar dust cloud as "an accumulation of gas, plasma, and dust in our and other galaxies. Put differently, an interstellar cloud is a denser-than-average region of the interst...
First of all, this website is a dream come true. I'm a total sucker for this stuff. Secondly, I love astronomy and worldbuilding, and lately, I've been thinking of a hypothetical situation, and wa...
A violent way of rendering a planet uninhabitable being the obvious: accelerate a large enough object to a sufficient velocity that everything on the planet goes the way of the dinosaurs. Put brie...
As I was thinking about space flight for my world, I thought about how they would need to know a planet's gravitational force before they could land, and found that humans figured out the moon's gr...
Question: Would a modern-day teen, trained in using the north star for directions when camping/hiking, notice a difference in how the "north star" (Polaris) works when transported suddenly to 1350 ...
The black hole question reminded me of an idea I wanted to implement at some point in a space campaign, but didn't go forward with because I was unsure whether it's merely statistically very implau...
Are there any unique challenges life would face evolving on a planet orbiting a Cepheid Variable star? I'm aware this is a broad question, so to narrow it down, consider this a question about Grea...
I'm no scientist and my poor brain box is on its last legs; I was wondering if any of you smart beans out there would be able to help me figure this out? Here are the specs of my system; Kereiol i...
Hello! I've put together my first planetary system, but as I'm not a scientist (and bad at maths) I'm reaching the limits of my brainbox and would really appreciate some fact checking! I have quest...
In this solar system, there are three K-type main sequence stars, or "orange dwarves", named Odin, Vili and Ve. At the center of this solar system, Odin is 80% the mass of our sun. The middle sta...
Imagine a planet with two moons that have an orbital pattern similar to that of Janus and Epimetheus of Saturn... Is there a way for one of these moons to keep a stable pair of Trojan sub moons? ...
For the purposes of my story, I have created the following setting. An Earth-like planet orbits a binary star system made up of a Sun-like star and a neutron star. For the majority of time (hundre...
I was working on a side project to design an alien fleet that is wandering in the universe, and harvesting energy from planets for their needs. While I can think of ways to make that happen (geothe...
If a chunk of land mass the size and position of Sweden took off and floated away in a straight line, exiting the atmosphere and orbiting earth, at what distance would it be visible from, let's say...
Say I have a planet with 10-20 moons of varying sizes orbiting it. If one of these moons were to explode/shatter into tiny pieces (I know this is probably impossible, but if we pretended it were po...
The Sun has nowhere near enough mass to enter the branch of stellar evolution that would lead to a supernova, fortunately for us. However, there are planets that orbit stars that are destined to go...
What would the consequences be of a high number of solar systems being within close proximity to one another? I'm mainly interested in the consequences for life on multiple planets. When I say 'clo...
For a moon orbiting a gas giant which is in turn orbiting a star, I want to know how long the eclipse would last for an observer standing on the moon when the planet passes between the moon and the...
This is Yeola~Camay. A double planet orbiting Sharro, an ordinaryish star somewhere in the universe of Far Far Away. As you can plainly see, Yeola is the planet on the left & Camay is the p...
What light spectrum would hit the surface of a planet orbiting a red dwarf star? The planet is a humid greenhouse with a cloudy atmosphere and a strong ozone layer. Over 80% of the surface is wate...
Considering the well-established relationships between stellar mass, surface temp, and luminosity, how unusual would it be to find a star (or brown dwarf) that possesses about half the mass of an a...
Brown dwarf stars are cool. Both literally and figuratively; the temperature profile for cool brown dwarves runs somewhere between 225K and 600K. It's possible if not probable that there exist som...
We've all heard the on-again, off-again theories of another massive object in the vast reaches of the outer solar system. Some potential evidence to support the possibility are its affects on small...
I'm well aware that a Sun-like star is incapable of producing a supernova at the end of its life. However, would removing the core or a fraction of it, trigger an explosion from the star collapsing...
What technology (at minimum), devices or minimum civilization development is needed, so that an individual member of this civilization would be able to detect that some star is going supernova? My...
I want to have aliens approach the Earth looking for a new world to colonize. They come from a similar planet circling a similar star, but either their star has entered its red giant phase (how lon...
An interstellar traveller stands upon the surface of an alien planet beneath the light of an unfamiliar sun. The planet upon which he stands orbits one star of a binary system in which one is a G-c...
On Earth, we experience seasons because of our planet's axial tilt. It is a common misconception that the seasons are instead caused by our planet's distance from the sun changing as it orbits....
On a planet without axial tilt and with a roughly circular orbit, there would be no seasons. The climate on the planet would be, as far as I can tell, exactly the same at any time of year, and the...
Imagine that humanity builds mining facilities on the moon. We know that the moon has Helium-3 which could be used as fuel for fusion reactors. Also, there are a lot of other resources which could ...
Basic idea: Primordial black hole (2.5% of Sun's mass) directly approaches Sun at fairly rapid pace (300 km/s). Consequently, six days after passing Earth's orbit, it will collide with the Sun; ac...
We know that Mars has a reddish color, because its ground consists of iron-based compounds. The moon is grey-whiteish because it consists mostly of silicon-based compounds. What element should the...
Those of you who have read Game Of Thrones will know that in the GOT world seasons do not have a fixed duration, e.g., a winter might last three times longer than the previous one. I find most int...
I am writing a novel about what it will be like on earth 500 or so years before the death of our Sun. The Sun is heating up gradually and one day that will negatively affect life on Earth. I know t...
I already read Can a planet survive a supernova? but that just addresses some kind of planet-remnant remaining in orbit. Parameters: Binary system. One component is a Sun-like G-type star with ...
Imagine an inhabitated planet like ours with a moon of the same projected size in the sky. The moon has visible structures of colors or darker and lighter areas. Every evening when the moon gets ...
Setup: A planet generally with an earthlike climate, although slightly wetter and warmer as a general rule, with a little more oxygen in the atmosphere, but habitable by unmodified humans. Still h...
Disclaimer: the overall idea of the world as presented is basically lifted from Strugatsky Brothers "Inhabited Island". The details of the question are for a derivative work in that universe. Imag...
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun. The result is a giant shadow that sweeps across the Earth's surface. This world has the opposite phenomenon. Instead of a...
Is it possible for a planet in our part of the galaxy to have a night without stars? I'm looking for some kind of natural phenomena that would hide the stars, but allow the sun to rise and fall as...
I am writing a theory for a game that is in an apocalypse. An asteroid is heading for earth and will crash into the earth regardless in this theory. It is 1km in size but due to the YORP effect it ...
I am writing a scenario for a game that I am a fan of. It involves an asteroid heading for impact with the Earth in 2027. This asteroid's initial diameter is about 1km, but it is slowly disintegrat...
Could one make a smaller eclipse kept stationary on the surface of the earth in order that one may be able to see the stars 24/7 from one site? How could this be achieved? Geostationary satelli...
I would like to know how close two planetary systems could be without having an adverse effect on each other. My goal is to drastically improve the chances of having habitable planets near enough t...
About 5 billion years from now, the Sun will begin to swell into a red giant. This will cause some problems, because life on a planet orbiting a red giant is hard. Even if Earth isn't engulfed by t...
I've got an image in my head of a world where it's just normal that the star is black with a golden halo around it - in other words, where the planet is in a state of perpetual solar eclipse. Are ...