Posts tagged planets
I'm exploring this idea for a fantasy world, and I was wondering how these planets would affect each other. The system would feature orbits in all three dimensions, not relatively flat like ours is...
In a futuristic sci-fi world (galaxy?) I'm building, warfare has become highly regulated and commercialized. When two corporations meet on a deserted planet to do battle, they're followed by all so...
Without giving spoilers, this idea comes from the movie Titan A.E. How would one create an Earth-like planet in a reasonable time frame (100-250 years) that has both the gravity of Earth and a magn...
One of the solution to make a cold planet habitable for us is to increase the greenhouse effect. It works with planets like Mars that are inside the habitable zone but would it be enough for a plan...
I'm wondering what adverse effects might be felt by someone from a planet with, say, 80% of Earth's gravity and a denser, but breathable, atmosphere with a higher concentration of oxygen visiting a...
Archimedes claimed that he would lift the Earth if he could find a suitable place outside it, with his knowledge of mechanics. So, my question is: What kind of set-up (e.g. how large lever or how ...
I am doing some research for a science fiction novel. I need to have a planetary body around 10,000 km in diameter appear in the Solar System near the Earth and proceed to orbit it artificially. I ...
Several science fiction books I have read (including, IINM, Nightfall by Asimov) have featured planets with several suns. Some worlds where this happened wrought interesting effects on the inhabita...
A great many questions have been written about a habitable moon around a gas giant. This is my take on it. Somehow (extra points to whoever figures out exactly how it is possible) Jupiter gets kno...
How probable is it that a gas giant planet made of "air" (roughly the same composition as Earth's atmosphere) could exist? What would it be like? How would it differ from Earth?
Back in the days when men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centaury, an obscenely rich woman decided s...
Imagine a tidally locked gas giant moon, which is otherwise earth-like. One side of the moon will have a huge planet constantly hovering in the sky (24 hour day/night cycle with a Jupiter-sized pri...
We've discovered stars that are contact binaries. This means that they orbit so close together that their photosphere reaches through their Roche lobes and links the two stars together. This sta...
This question is connected to: Fire Resistant Fauna I've been pondering a short story concept where a scientific expedition discovered a planet with a huge amount of both free hydrogen and oxygen ...
Fits into the planetary transfer of energy category...for whatever reason and using whatever means, one planet is used to generate a massive amount of energy, ultimately as electricity. This power...
Inspired by the many great questions asked for this fortnight's tag challenge, I got to thinking, could a plant develop/evolve to eventually consume an entire planet, and keep on living? What I mea...
Ok, so I have this planet that I am still building. It is a desert planet, its surfice is almost completely arid with a few exceptions such as snow deserts in the poles. There is sentient life in ...
I was experimenting with various star system designs with a gravity simulator, and one of the patterns I ended up with is best described as a planet with a very elongated elliptic orbit that itself...
I've just come across a subplot in Jack McDevitt's Firebird where the earth-like planet Villanueva and the rest of its planet system was moving towards an unspecified dust cloud that made the plane...
Obviously there are plenty of potential physics problems with this scenario, but if people lived along the inner crust of the Earth, and there was a Sun-like core at the center with nothing else in...
This is about a fictional planet that has a solid land surface but on which the atmosphere is composed of some liquid containing hemoglobin, or some artificial blood substitute. I am not sure yet ...
Is there a way to make a planet invisible naturaly? I dont want the entire thing to be clear, but have a natural "field" or something that prevents the planet from being seen (or makes it much hard...
Suppose we have a planetary system in orbit around a Class O hypergiant star of 225 solar masses (larger than all but R136a1, the largest star we currently know of), 32,000 times as bright as our s...
With the technologies that we have got, is it possible to completely migrate 1/3rd of the world's population to another planet which has characteristics similar to those of earth ? Possibly it will...
Would it be possible for the atmosphere of a planet to reach beyond its planetary ring so that earth-like biology could develop on some of the asteroids there? This question is mainly about whethe...
On earth, we use a simple but effective coordinate system which determines position unambiguously on the surface (GPS achieving accuracy within 1 meter, which speaking as an engineer, is a remarkab...
There is this setup that I've seen a few times of a ring-shaped world where people live on the inner side. My question is: what is the minimum advancement of technology for such a thing to happen? ...
If some advanced race were to make a solid opaque shell around our Sun, say around Mercury's orbit, something like a Dyson Sphere, how long would it take for Earth to freeze over and end most life?
What would it take in terms of impact size to interrupt or stop Earth's (or an Earth-like planet's) magnetic field?
While we develop space travel technologies, the Moon will always be the first destination. By its proximity to Earth is the obvious target to test our technology. Before we can establish some kind...
Is it possible for humans to live on a world with the following conditions? Atmosphere: 50% nitrogen; 30% oxygen; 20% carbon dioxide. Climate: The rain in some areas is acidic. (Is there som...
Imagine that you lived in this world: The planet has a diameter of 5000 km. The rotation time is the same as the orbital period. And here it comes: the orbital period is 1027 years. The planet's ...
Is there any conceivable way that a planet with two moons--one being visibly red to the naked eye due to its mineral composition--could align in an eclipse in such a way so that the whole effect lo...
Accept that we had a reason to go to Mars, managed to build a colony there, and what we found on Mars is valuable enough to ship back to Earth. There is now a self sustainable colony living under t...
Could a civilization exist on a planet/dwarf planet like Pluto? It is so cold and barren. Is it possible? What would they live off? They don't have to be humanoid.
Given a planet about the size of Earth, and a moon the Size of the Moon, how could one destroy the moon without flinging the fragments onto the surface of the planet or into outer space? How can o...
This question was stimulated by the question How would an aquatic race develop computers?. The answers obviously were based on the aquatic civilization being earth based, but what about a totally ...
Terraforming is the process of transforming a celestial body to become habitable by Earth-like life. Even when I try to imagine an advanced civilization, the cost, time and complexity to terrafor...
On Earth, the planet itself is negatively charged and the clouds are positively charged, causing lightning to travel from the clouds to the surface. While there are significantly smaller wisps of l...
What would happen if a powerful explosive went off in the core of a planet? On Earth, you have several layers of the planet, the crust, the magma, the outer core, and the inner core. Right now, hu...
Suppose a very large planet orbited a star or other spacial body in an oval shaped path, similar to Earth's but closer to induce a varying gravity during orbit. The planet has a large gravity wel...
How big a difference does the Earth's liquid outer core and mantle make for the evolution of complex life? If all of Earth's parameters would be the same, but it had a solid interior just like Ma...
I want to make a hot planet habitable for mankind. It could be a planet in the habitable zone like Venus or outside of the zone like Mercury. These are just examples. Someone said here:Â Terrafor...
The question is rather simple, the answer is more complex. It is to answer why some places are colder than others. Example: North America is colder than Europe at the same latitude.
If two (or more) planets are within travel distance from each other and they often trade with each other, how likely is it that these planets cultures influence(d) each other? For example: On plan...
