Posts tagged orbital-mechanics
I understand there are a lot of factors to consider here, but would it be possible for material from the ship's destruction to fall to earth and cause significant damage to a city? What is a reason...
This planet is fictional, but I want it to be credible all the same. It is the same size and composition of Earth, orbiting a sun-like star. But that's where the similarities end. The planet's or...
In a fictional setting, an Earth-like planet is orbiting another, Jupiter-like planet. For explanation see my previous question Which astronomical or cosmological event would explain periodical lo...
Assume we have a planet similar to earth in size and materials. But we put it in orbit of a mass much greater then our sun so that the year becomes much shorter like 10 days (or put it much closer ...
We've seen questions about multiple planets in a single orbit before, using Lagrangian points, through orbiting each other as they go around, etc. I'm looking at the creation of a hypothetical syst...
I'm building a world which is 50% covered by the sea. For approximately half the year, the sea covers one hemisphere; for the other half it moves to the other hemisphere, leaving the first a dry se...
Using only existing technologies, can we shoot 4-5 kg bullets into a stable, specific Low Earth Orbit (at least 1000 km)? The bullets don't contain "hardware" such as electronics, so acceleration ...
EDIT: Yup, totally misguided here: http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae429.cfm Drifting away. So, no lunar catastrophe for me (without some other handwavium) I've read somewhere tha...
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 ...
Similar to other suggested dynamic structures using kinetic energy to provide structural support, I am considering options for resisting external pressure in a vessel (e.g. a diving bell) by incorp...
If a tidal locked terrestrial sized moon with 0 eccentricity, 0 incline, and was orbiting .01 AU away from a gas giant with 12 Jupiter masses (which would have approximately the same radius as Jupi...
Is there any feasible way for a satellite to have a long lasting higher spin orbit resonance than 1:1 (tidal locking) BESIDES having an eccentric orbit, having its own satellite, or being severely ...
Can a Dyson Sphere and a star inside of the Dyson Sphere, both have a "stable" orbit around the barycentre of a system where they are not the most massive objects? And/Or Can they both orbit togeth...
It takes the Earth about 365.25 days to orbit the Sun on its current elliptical path. That means it moves about 30 km/s, 2×π×(149,600,000 km)/(1 year). So, given that, how high could Earth's...
Inspired by this article about the Kepler-enabled search for life-supporting moons, I came over here to learn more about the concept. I found this very complicated answer to a very complicated que...
In a world where there are strict controls on "computational and instruction following machines" (all calculation machinery are basically none reprogrammable and limited to specific narrow tasks - ...
Supposing there is a system of several (four to twelve) celestial bodies which are orbiting a star. In this system of bodies, each body is similar enough in size that no single body has a dominant ...
I would like to better understand how often solar eclipses would happen on a planet that is tidally locked with its moon (and the moon is tidally locked with the planet). I understand that in this...
So my story takes place on a moon orbiting a gas giant about the size of Jupiter and I was wondering if it was at all possible for a planetary ring to exist beyond the planets Roche limit. I get th...
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'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...
There seems to be a connection between orbital revolution (one year) and distance from the star the body orbits. For example, Earth orbits the sun at a distance of 93 million miles and completes o...
Is there a necessary relation between orbital period and the time of precession? In the case of Earth, the orbital period is one year, while a complete precession cycle takes thousands of years. Is...
I'm creating a short story about two planets, roughly the same mass, orbiting around each other somewhat like the Earth and the Moon. Would it be possible for both to also be rotating at the same t...
For a gas giant to have a habitable Earth-like moon, in a P-type circumbinary orbit with the stellar classes of the 2 stars being A7 type III and F2 type IV separated by a distance of 2AU to 3AU, w...
My story takes place on a moon in orbit around a Gas giant. The moon has 0 tilt relative to the sun but the gas giant it orbits does have an eccentric orbit around its parent star. (it has an orbit...
I'd like to set a story in our solar system with Earth and the inner planets becoming uninhabitable and a new planet being required. If human beings decided to build a world by making slight deviat...
Ok, I know it sounds very far-fetched, but I'm curious. We know that Binary stars truly exist, and that binary planets are all but confirmed. Here's my insane question: can there be a TERNARY pla...
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...
I'm working with the idea of a 'ring station' encircling a planet, as a tightly connected belt of structures that connect in orbit around the planet's equator. I'm curious to know what would happen...
Assuming a civilization has the technology and capability to build a worldship, a planet that doubles as a spacecraft, installs an FTL drive on it and has the energy to power it, what would the eff...
For my science fantasy story, I need a particular setting for my world. I need a planet (Earth or earth-like), habitable and with complex life forms like our planet. However, over time, this planet...
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...
First I'm going to expand on what I mean by this generator: the photo-electric effect means that metal spaceships will slowly become positively charged as they fly across space, but for the purpose...
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...
I'm trying to construct a habitable world which has a sun orbiting around it. I know a star can't orbit around a planet, because a star is much more massive than a single planet, which has been kno...
As the moon is tidal locked, she is always showing the same side turned toward Earth. How could I give her a little rotation, allowing us to see the other side, without destroying the earth's curre...
What artificial disaster could disrupt the orbit of our planet? Not necessarily making it leave the Solar System, but maybe changing its trajectory around the sun. And by artificial, I mean that th...
In this universe, mass and gravity work differently so stable torus planets are possible (donut shaped). How would a torus world orbiting a single star have to rotate in order to have a stable da...
I'm imagining a situation that we can see a star change color periodically: A star and Earth orbit around a black hole The star is very near to the black hole so that it has high orbital speed, w...
It is a known concept that if ships were to be constructed in space, it would save a lot of fuel and allow for larger ships. My question is, what would be the best location for an orbital "dockyard...
Good afternoon! I'm working on a fantasy series set on a very small planet, roughly the size of Pluto or the Moon. I've already read some topics on the small earth-like planets, but mine's a bit un...
I'm trying to think of ways that a habitable tidally locked planet could have something that resembles a day/night cycle. Shadows caused by any moons being out of the question. Hypothetically, cou...
Here is a link to an online animation of stars' movements in a trinary system. Basically, the three stars are orbiting around a barycenter; one (yellow in the animation, mass = 1) closer to it a...
I know next to nothing about astrophysics, but I've read a few Wikipedia articles, and it seems like a "normal" kind of binary system includes two stars of similar mass orbiting a common center. I...
Is there a scientifically plausible way for a habitable world to have a sun that undergoes a regular, dramatic, and easily observable change? One comparable in visual impact to an event like a sola...
This is the ideal set up for my solar system: EDIT It's been pointed out that this is not a stable set up, so I want to clarify that everything in this set up can be changed at will to fit my plan...
I have two earth clones, in essence, separated by *16550 miles (26350 kilometers). They are, of course, tidally locked, and orbit each other once every 24 hours. These planets orbit a sun identical...
I've been working on my story planet and have come up with an unlikely but possible scenario to help explain some of my stories origins as well as myths and folklore. Over the last day or so, I've ...
