Posts tagged atmosphere
What happens if Earth's magnetic field shuts down? How exactly does this impact humans, and how long before we need to make significant changes for survival? Does it make any difference if Earth'...
Years ago I read a letter in a magazine suggesting a method for reducing the fire risk in an enclosed environment such as a space shuttle. The idea was to reduce the oxygen concentration to the po...
Inspired by the answers to What can I add to an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere to make it unpalatable or poisonous to humans, yet stable and breathable to local creatures?, I am building a planet that ...
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...
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...
With the emergence of cyanobacteria on earth 3.5 billion years ago, the shift from a reducing to an oxidizing atmosphere began. "The atmospheric O$_\textrm{2}$ levels (in PAL; i.e., normalized to ...
I am writing a novel where a habitable moon orbits a purple gas giant. In looking here and elsewhere I'm finding it incredibly hard to get a sense of the elements-breakdown of elements that would b...
I'm working on a concept for a habitable world with venus-like atmospheric pressures, where humans have settled onto huge tabletop mountains where the atmosphere isn't as crushing. This is a terraf...
I wonder if it is possible to install artificial equipment that would exhaust oxygen into air in otherwise CO2 atmosphere so that locally people could breath in open air without any kind of tent or...
I had posted a question a couple of days ago asking if it would be possible for an artificial satellite/cosmic body at the L1 orbit to block out the Sun, but the logistics of that is a little too e...
So the mass of air around the earth has doubled. How it doubled isn't part of the question, but for the curious let's say a space station floating around earth processed all the nitrogen, oxygen, c...
I've seen Which is easier to develop: a piston prop engine or a jet engine? and my own Effects of ~10atm pressure on engine design neither of which answers this. Would different atmospheric densit...
If you were inside of a gas that was producing its own light (for example, air at 900°C), what would it look like? Would it look foggy, or would objects that aren't the same colour as the glow sti...
Right now I'm currently trying to calculate the average surface pressure at sea level of an atmosphere, but I'm having a struggle finding the relevant formulae with which to determine this number. ...
I am creating a science fiction worldbuilding project, in which humanity has colonised distant exoplanets. One such planet is a Venus-like planet in the sense that it has a perpetual cloud cover, a...
What exactly are the relevant numbers for such a calculation, and can it account for the color of the sky? By sky color, I mean the day to day hue that humans (or something else with very similar ...
My augmented society of humans have managed to engineer their power-hungry cyborg components to run on a hydrogen fusion reactor. Whilst they have so far managed to fuel it by drinking lots of wate...
On Venus the surface is around 467 degrees Celsius. At the top of the atmosphere it is much cooler, and at around 60 km above the surface the temperature is around 40 to 50 degrees Celsius. This is...
I've been told that having a thicker atmosphere would make it easier to fly, particularly of heavier-than-air designs, so I'm interested in giving my planet such conditions. I'm mainly interested t...
Consider a planet with Earth like gravity but an atmosphere that is 10x what Earth has at sea level (atmospheric composition is equivalent to Earth). If the vegetation is similar to Earth's, would ...
Good day everyone. I've recently finally gotten around to writing a sci fi novel but need help on some of the science of a few concepts I would like to incorporate in the novel. I'll start with ...
Many people are excited with the idea of super-Earths--rocky, habitable exoplanets greater in mass, density and diameter (because I'd prefer to go the whole way than stop at the halfway point) than...
Could a measurable amount of isopropyl alcohol occur naturally in an otherwise reasonably earth-like atmosphere? And if so, what is the highest possible concentration that a human could survive lo...
Let us assume we have a rocky planet by the name of Pyros orbiting a single star, the Star of Random. It has an atmosphere consisting of 77% methane, 21% oxygen, 1% water vapor, and 1% other gases...
I've been trying to create a Earth-like planet but I'm not sure if my planet's atmosphere is breathable. (It's mostly the amount of helium I'm worried about). I've tried to make it Earth-like whil...
So I'm working on a fictional planet which would experience a daytime sky similar to this. This particular picture is from the movie Valerian: City of a Thousand Planets. Fictional alien atmosph...
I have been making a future colonization scenario where people have vast colonies on Mars and cloud top bases on Venus. These things are unbelievably large. I've already thought of a way to travel ...
Would it make sense to use screw- and fin-like bending surfaces for propulsion (like what eels or the king of herrings have but in the atmosphere) instead of regular propellers or even flapping win...
Could alien life use nitrous oxide, N2O, as its oxidizing gas, like oxygen on earth? What biochemical reactions would be needed to produce and utilise this gas? I've also heard conflicting messag...
Can a world exist where the atmosphere is actually thicker at some altitude than at sea level? If so, what mechanisms would be involved?
What would be the likelihood of an asteroid developing a thin layer of gas? If an asteroid is capable of having an "atmosphere", then how likely would be be for primitive plant life, such as a moss...
I want to make an atmosphere rich in carbon monoxide, but as it doesn't stick around for very long, it will need to be replenished. I'm looking for concentrations comparable to those of carbon diox...
When I say all-metal airships, I'm referring to something like the above from Jakub Rozalski's artwork - the design is more akin to a naval destroyer or battleship and less like a zeppelin. We'v...
If humans lived on the inside of the earth's crust, what would happen if they climbed mountains? These mountains would stretch toward the burning center of the Earth. Would gravity get stronger the...
I am working on a story about a person who was raised on an earth-like planet and later moves to our earth. The planet he is from specializes in fruit juice and alcohol making, in specific, wine. W...
I know this question has been asked in similar places, but I'm after a specific part of the problem. Assuming the following: Perfectly flat, infinite world Earth's atmosphere Sun directly overhea...
The Orion's Arm Universe Project includes a description of what they call "To'ul'hian Worlds", planets that are (in the simplest of terms) a cross between Earth and Venus. I'm working on designing...
I want to create a tidally locked world with a habitable (broadly Earth like atmosphere and biome that humans could breathe and live in) band stretching around the terminator pole to pole. There wo...
I'm working to design the atmosphere of a fictional planet inspired by Venus (let's call it Cael). Cael's atmosphere at an altitude of 50 km is essentially identical to Earth's atmosphere at sea l...
Humans have colonized the subsurface oceans of Europa - building large cities embedded in the icy crust, hanging beneath it, and resting on the rocky seafloor. These colonists mine metals for const...
I am developing a fictional planetary system in which a large gas giant planet (slightly less than the mass of Saturn), has migrated into the habitable zone during the formational years of the syst...
I was thinking of creating an alien planet that orbits a star slightly past the habitable zone, but is kept warm by an extremely dense atmosphere, made primarily of a black gas, but still contains ...
For complicated reasons our hero's blimp in the Venus atmosphere at an altitude of 50 km gets a tear in it and sunlight floods inside (there is no gondola, the blimp is a semi-ellipsoid of breathab...
A certain imaginary stellar system had once a water world. But instead of evaporating away under the stellar wind, this lucky (or unlucky?) water world (made of only water and a gaseous atmosphere)...
As a follow-up to this question, what would be the effect(s) of a high-speed of super-heated plasma entering and impacting on a planet? The planet is about the size of 1.2x Earth(s), with a simila...
Can a planet with a dense atmosphere composed mainly of sulfur dioxide have a blue sky like Earth's due to Rayleigh scattering? Or would the composition change the color of the sky? I mean, it's we...
In Deep, deep space, there exists a star system with a single planet. This planet, named Dewel, is a large, green gas giant with a mass of about twice Jupiter's. What could this planet's atmosphere...
Earth's atmosphere, as you probably know, is divided into five layers - the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#Str...
My story begins with a group of colonists on a ship when something happens (spoilers) and the colonists are forced to abandon ship and land on a nearby uncharted moon of a gas giant. The good news...
A recent question here on SE:WB reminded me of a short story I wrote a long time ago, and has inspired me to revisit the idea. The premise: A race of massive alien creatures travel from planet to...
