Posts tagged planets
This question is in the same context (the same world) proposed by Steven L. Gillett in his book: "World-building". And actually there have been some other questions about this same chlorinated worl...
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...
Inspired by this question and my comment on one of the answers. If the earth were flung out of the solar system, it would rapidly become far too cold for any unprotected life to survive on the s...
The situation I'm considering is as follows: A large research vessel with a crew of about 100-200 attempts to land on a potentially habitable planet, but something goes wrong during the descent. A...
As an ancient organism whom currently occupies a large chunk of a planet beneath the surface, I have a pesky issue with an invasive species. These humans have decided to colonize my home, mistaking...
I'm creating a new setting for a novel. I'd like to build a world where the interaction between the planet and its satellite/satellites can generate a normal tide excursion around 6/8 metres. Furth...
My world has a huge crater (4400 miles in diameter) on a world that's roughly earth equivalent (so a circumference of 25000 miles). The native population doesn't need to know how it was formed but...
Note: This is different from the previous question Building a full-sized Lego Earth - what would it look like at various levels?. In that case it was about making a solid full-size Earth from Lego ...
If an earth-sized planet were tidally locked to a star, and was in the life zone of its star with an earth-like atmosphere, what would its wind patterns be like? The planet would have one hot hemi...
For a SF story I'm wondering how thick a planet's rings can be? When viewed from the inside, can the ring material be so dense that visibility would only be a couple of meters? What would it take t...
The normal condition of life in a planet (Earth right now) is that below us is the planet's core, and above us is the sky. Now if there's a hollow planet like above, is that possible? How does ...
A planet with changing gravity On earth gravity stays constant (besides negligible fluctuations), but it may be possible to change that. What kind of geology, natural satellite, or other anomaly c...
One rule: it cannot be caused by aliens or AI invading the planet. But it is okay if an alien race causes the destruction in any other way. It's an Earth-like planet. I need the effects of the des...
Building on this question "Discovery of life on Mars" Mars is habitable (40% the mass of Earth, 6.06 m/s² gravity, escape velocity of 7.88 km/s, a satellite big enough to stabilize its axis an...
I know of the conceptualized "Sinkers", "Floaters" and "Hunters" that Carl Sagan and Edwin Salpeter of Cornell conceived of - as possible life forms that might inhabit a gas giant. At the time they...
I've been toying with a concept for a hollow/inner Earth universe in which I would like to achieve an even distribution of light. The pickle is that the "sun" of this world operates like a beacon/s...
In my world a space civilization is colonizing a massive solid planet. The planet has an extraordinarily fast rotation. The gravity is severe at the poles, making life impossible, but life flouri...
In the movie Interstellar, Miller's planet is an ocean planet orbiting extremely close to a black hole. The ridiculous tidal effects caused by the black hole cause the planet's water to concentrate...
In my universe a race of humanoid beings caused 3 planets: Earth a larger rocky planet and another earth sized rocky planet to crash and collide into each other, but still allowed the humanoi...
Important note: The orbits in the diagram are elliptical. They have low eccentricity so they appear to be off centre circles but they really are ellipses with the star at a focus. The habitable...
I once show a picture depicticting the idea of an ultimate solar system: Image Copyright Sean Raymond In this solar system there are 8 planetary orbits, each containing 52 equal-mass, evenly-spa...
This question is pretty straightforward: What is the minimum and maximum distance for a planet to be in the habitable zone of an average sized (not biggest, not smallest) Red Dwarf star?
Imagine a world that spun just fast enough (and had a strange enough composition to hold itself together as a spinning sphere) to create an outward, centrifugal force which was as strong as its gra...
I've read a lot of questions about the specifics of meteor impacts on this site, but strangely this one seems to still elude me: Assume a meteor of sufficient mass and speed to wipe out human life...
By a stable orbit I mean not getting ejected by the other planets or ejecting them, Let's create a scenario where Neptune occupies an orbit in the asteroid belt at 2.76 AU, Ceres average distance f...
I have a terrestrial planet that is similar to Mars in many ways, a desert-like surface, thin atmosphere, and inhospitable to large flora and fauna as we know it. This planet has ceased tectonic ...
I'm writing a story that will eventually escalate from being focused on one planet to the entire star system that planet belongs to, and finally to a big story involving the two nearest star system...
I'm thinking up a Mars or Venus type planet where the poles (or one pole) has a forest growing out of it due to a device that is used to make the planet more habitable by creating a oxygen friendly...
So I found the base of these pesky rebels on this planet and I am tasked with destroying the planet to eliminate the rebels once and for all. Unfortunately, my death star has malfunctioned and has ...
There's a planet called eaglypt whose surface is 100% barren desert. However, there is a twist: the planet's core consists of liquid water, and there are a few places where this water seeps through...
I have two planets and humans live on both of them. Humans need not have developed on these planets, but the planets should support human life with the allowance that the humans have technology com...
Lego representations of Earth have been made at various scales, for example this one: Suppose Slartibartfast made a full-size Earth from Lego (including the oceans being represented as solid blo...
I've got a generally earthlike planet, but my goal is to make radiation exposure in the polar regions a much larger hazard than it is on Earth, while not being an issue in other regions. Nothing im...
I'm working on a story that takes place on a world that has 3 moons. At least 2 of the moons are the same size. They align extremely rarely. Otherwise, it's an earth-like planet. There is one...
Some science-fiction books I've read (including more than a few by Ray Bradbury) have men from Earth living on Mars, walking around outside of enclosures. I know that this is currently not realisti...
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...
I'm trying to create a planet which environment is not immediately lethal to humans, (reasonable oxygen level) however after closer inspection turns out not to be specially Earth-like. One issues ...
If I was affixed to the surface of some solid spherical body in space (so as to ignore effects like me floating away), would it be possible for me to throw a tennis ball so that it went into orbit ...
In my universe, there are two ocean-based planets floating in space. I would like to merge them together in a realistic way. What kind of event could cause the planets to merge into a bigger one? (...
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 ...
Here's some rough WIP pixel art of the planet I'm trying to create just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about color wise. I'm referencing the dark blue that you see at the poles of the plan...
Could a moon or planet with otherwise no atmosphere maintain gas pockets in sufficiently deep craters, and could it be habitable by humans without pressure or space suits? I found this similar que...
Recently, pictures taken by the New Horizons space probe were released depicting the unusually-shaped object Ultima Thule. Now, suppose there was an world the size of the Earth, but in the shape o...
We know that Gor, or Counter-Earth, is not stable in a long-term sense. Let's handwave that away, or assume that we are dealing with a temporary span of time in which the instability is immaterial....
I'm trying to create my planet orbiting a red dwarf, honestly I've thought other scenarios but it's like every answer opens new questions. I'll just say what I want my planet to be and I'd like you...
Ok so I've been going around on the internet trying to figure out whether or not when 2 earth like planets of similar densities and makeup collide is it possible for them to bounce off of each othe...
It was disputed in the 1940s-50s whether Venus had a hot surface and cool cloud layer or a cool surface and hot cloud layer. As I recall, both were considered at the limits of plausibility a...
Im trying to find the equation to the the size of the resulting crater created by meteor strike when I have the mass, volume, diameter, density, velocity and kinetic energy of the meteor Can an...
Without changing a planet from being habitable for humans and keeping a similar ecosystem why could intelligent races never access electricity? What systems need to be erased from the planet to ...
Premises: red dwarfs tend to have violent sun storms in their early years, thus are expected to strip atmosphere of planets that may be in their habitable zones; water worlds (including planets w...