Posts tagged solar-system
Inspired by this question from yesterday. Solar flares can give off a large amount of radiation, but on Earth this is typically absorbed before it reaches anywhere but the poles, and even then on...
I'm heavily ignorant when it comes to mathematics and just science in general, but I have thought of four habitable planets, all of them revolving around a K-type sun. They're all colonized by huma...
Background I was pondering my answer to this question. I asked myself, "Why would I only do a 45-minute burn and then float for 3 months to get to Mars?". Then I answered, "Because you only have ...
These planets would be similar in size to Earth. Mars and Venus don't need to exist in this scenario. So how many Earth-like worlds can be squeezed into the sun's "goldilocks" zone? Mars and Venu...
In the past we humans thought that our planet was the center of the universe and everything revolved around us, due to science/math/astronomy and any other means we now believe that to not be true....
Okay so there's a project I've been thinking about for a long time wherein humans colonise a world where the climate appears warm and benign only to discover that the local climate oscillates from ...
Information and Context I'm working on a story, based 220 or so years in the future in a hard-science universe (where a quantum jump drive has been invented). I was wondering if anyone could giv...
In my story, technologically advanced aliens create a "white hole" at the center of the sun that constantly spits out matter (hydrogen) from a parallel universe, increasing the star's mass quickly....
I am looking at realistic options that could damage the Earth so severely that it would be impossible for mankind to survive there and that would also not allow us to just colonize other planets or...
I'm interested in the viability of the following scheme for (relatively) fast space commerce within the Solar System: have a fleet of space stations essentially built around a long linear acceler...
The light from the sun is dissipated in a sphere, so there is a squared relationship between the distance from the sun. Would it be possible to place either a lens or solar collectors with a laser...
According to an answer to a previous question, it would be comparatively impractical to conduct mining on a rocky planet when there are moons, asteroids, comets, etc. that have smaller mass, so muc...
Some research papers, such as Arnold 2005, has investigated the possibility of using artificial megastructures transit signatures as long-range, long-lived and low-maintenance signals of unambiguou...
Where would the Sun and Moon be on a flat Earth? Imagine a world similar to the flat domed depiction of the Earth with a Biblical Firmament all around it. If you don't know what that is, let me e...
I'm building up a spreadsheet on worldbuilding (Stars, Planets, Moons etc.) and i'm struggling to find an equation, or a group of equations to help me figure out the light received by a planet orbi...
I've been building a world, partly for test reasons (making sure my spreadsheet works, and so i know what i need to add to it) and partly for fun, but for calender reasons i need to know the orbita...
If for a 'magic' Reason a second planetary mass of roughly equal proportions to earth appeared in the same orbit as earth. Is there any way that both masses could continue to orbit and remain in th...
Assuming all the energy in our solar system (solar energy, heat, etc) was converted into matter, and then using all the matter in the solar system, how big of a city sphere could be built? What I ...
You're an alien that really likes pyrotechnics. Nothing that goes boom on your home planet (in a safe and responsible manner) satisfies you any more. Why not blow up a planet and see what that's ...
I'm curious what it would take to get a planet with so much free fluorine that you can have an atmosphere of predominantly or purely fluorine. I realize how improbable a planet like this is, so I'm...
I thought of two questions regarding ringworld structures in solar systems with results I can't assume, so I will try to describe each (assume stability): If a (toroidal) ringworld were massive e...
Imagine we could open a wormhole or a jump point to a new star system. How soon would it be possible to have an accurate map of the major bodies in that system? In sci-fi, this sort of information...
Building on this question about the magnetosphere for a planet with a substantial mercury core, what is the proto-planetary environment required to form a planet with a mercury core? Specifically,...
This is the second part of a question here that I've broken up because they are two very distinct problems. Assuming a perfectly stable ringworld: Assume a more traditional flat ringworld that is ...
In a world I am building, there is a planet named Sentia. Sentia orbits around a G1 star called Prometheus and has two moons, Valkyrie and Cerberus, whose masses add up to around the mass of our mo...
Background Moonshot entrepreneur Elon Branson funds a migration to space. Instead of spending billions of developing safe space technology, he instead finds volunteers and shoots them in to spac...
What orbital parameters could I give seven Mars/Earth sized planets so they have stable orbits around a G-type star like The Sun, they need to fit between 0.5 AU and 1.7 AU.
Astronomers place planet Earth under what they call a "Goldilocks Zone"--a spot in the solar system where conditions are ideal for liquid water to form, thus making the creation of life possible. ...
Assume there are three earth-like worlds in our solar system. These three worlds would also have a single natural satellite roughly at the same mass-distance ratio of Earth to the Moon (about 1.2 p...
Mars and Earth's moon already feature in a lot of fiction about space colonization. After these two planets, and assuming that other solar systems are too far away, what is the best place within th...
A Milankovitch cycle is defined in Universe Today as a cyclical movement related to the Earth's orbit around the Sun. There are three elements to a Milankovitch cycle that affects the amount ...
Jupiter is a terrible place to be, but for a number of artistic reasons, I'd like to have my story take place there and only there. "Mining", or resource extraction by any other name, is the usual ...
A large, visible set of rings is the most conspicuous element that sets Saturn apart from the other planets. The whole system is 175,000 miles (280,000 km) wide but only two-thirds of a mile thi...
I recently finished reading the Kim Stanley Robinson novel 2312 - set, of course, in the year 2312. Part of the background to the political negotiations and ongoing terraforming in the outer Solar ...
Edited to give a reason why synthetic diamonds wouldn't work instead. In the distant future, all the diamonds are gone. While synthetic diamonds are an excellent sollution for technology - as @...
After traveling a long long time, your spaceship is finally entering into the gravitational sphere of influence of a Sun-like star. Your captain would now like to move from the Oort-like cloud dist...
In a universe with no faster-than-light travel, the Solar System has largely been settled, and has been for at least 200 years. I envision populations to look something like this: Earth: 8 billi...
Preamble The Alternity Cosmos II is a complement to a dice role-playing game that uses heuristics based on hard-science to 'build' plausible star systems for the Alternity game: http://www.altern...
Humans require a 20 degrees environment. that's 250 degrees warmer than Pluto. So, if humans lived there, their structures would melt the surface and sink. −200 cracks all common metals. most sp...
I am writing a book where there is a binary system with a red and blue star. There is planet with the same properties as earth orbiting in a habitable zone around the 2 stars. The question How c...
Every day the Sun is closer to be a Red giant, making the live of the initial home of the humanity practically uninhabitable. Humans are not there anymore. It's a protected territory, but the Sun g...
I have just found out that the Milankovitch Cycle, a machination responsible for the creation of the Pleistocene ice ages, has its part played partly by orbit from the entire solar system. As a re...
I wonder if there is a stable star-moon-planet system where a specific area of the planet would be permanently covered by shadow. I'm not looking for a common tidally locked planet with a roughly 5...
Lets say you have an average-ish magnetar "” about 3 solar masses, with a magnetic field of 108 teslas (it's decayed a bit since it was born). Now lets say we have a solar system with a small-ish ...
I've asked another question about trinary planet systems which turned out to not be possible. Is there a way for three worlds to co exist within sight of each other? Sight being defined as making ...
Pluto is inclined in a way that makes it slightly off the orbital plane of all the other planets and sun. Could you have a planet that was inclined at 90 degrees, or at least close to that? What wo...
So, I'm working on a story which involves a triple star system that is full of planets. The first two stars, a G type (which is orbited by an asteroid belt and two small rocky worlds) and a B type ...
I hope this is the right Stack exchange for this question. I'm designing a planet as a setting for a tabletop RPG campaign, and basically I'm looking for some help to make sure my idea is at least ...
I know that by definition, a desert implies a lack of water and, as such, makes it very hard for living things to survive there. In the story I'm writing, the characters come across a planet that ...
Assume there is a point in time when every planet in our Solar System consists of colonies. Each colony is inhabited with civilians that primarily serve the purpose of its colony. Some colonies m...
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