Posts tagged solar-system
I recently learned that it's believed that the solar system once had one more gas giant, which was ejected by Jupiter some time in the past. https://thesolarsystem.fandom.com/wiki/Fifth_Giant Doe...
The Earth-Moon Lagrange points have names: L1, L2, and L3 are Libration Points, the L4 and L5 points are the Kordylewski Clouds. The Jupiter-Sun L4 is named the Greeks, and the Jupiter-Sun L5 is n...
As far as we know Earth and every other planet in the solar system rotate around their axes. Whether it be Uranus which rotates on its side or Mercury which rotates perfectly straight, all planets ...
Is my planet realistic? It doesn't need to be able to support life as it's just another planet in my solar system, but is a planet with such a high density and gravity really possible? I calculated...
I'm not sure if this site or Astronomy would be better, but I figured I would try here instead. I am attempting to create a [semi]plausible star system in Alpha Centauri for a series. The system w...
Is there a feasible setup where the Sun has expanded enough to make the Earth uninhabitable, but some of the other rocky bodies in our solar system (past Earth) become more reasonable colonisation ...
I'm new to this and my scientific knowledge is massively lacking in this area (so please take it easy on me!) I'm writing a historical science-fiction novel. Parts of it set in the past (1977) and ...
One of the planets I'm thinking of for my book series has all of its landmass in the northernmost half of the northern hemisphere (it is thus mostly a water world) and is completely geologically de...
The eclipse needs to be visible from at least one region on the planet every revelation and last about one hour.
(This is the third in a series of questions, starting with Moved into further orbits to protect them, how much damage do Earth and Moon take when the Sun expands? and How soon does the Earth's surf...
I am creating a world for Sci Fi story in which I am trying to have two non-tidally locked earth sized planets in a binary orbit around Alpha Centauri A. The only way I can think of this happening ...
The story takes place in Alpha Centauri, with this binary orbiting just over 1 AU from Rigil Kentaurus. The star system will tightly packed, but following the 10 Mutual Hill Radii separation setup....
The scenario Many science fiction novels are concerned with aliens visiting Earth, but what if aliens have no interest in Earth at all and yet they arrive at the Solar system for the sole purpose ...
(Note: This is a follow-up question to my previous one: Moved into further orbits to protect them, how much damage do Earth and Moon take when the Sun expands?) Thanks to clever stellar engineerin...
A cleaner, narrower-focused improvement of How This Alternate Solar System Influences the Milankovitch Cycle, so not a duplicate. For further clarification, eccentricity is the shape of a planet's...
I'm trying to create a scenario where the local star is "quickly" (suddenly up to thousands of years) removed, dimmed with reduced output, destroyed (maybe), or otherwise fundamentally changed as t...
Short version A far future catastrophe burns/melts away large chunks of the Earth and Moon. For reasons related to my story's fantasy elements, the remains of the Moon have about one fifth their or...
I am attempting to construct a world that is primarily lit by light filtered through and reflected off of a crystalline moon so that, at its brightest, the planet receives about the same amount of ...
"Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov (you can hear the story here on escapepod, if you need it) postulates a planet in a multi-sun system. The orbital mechanics of the 6 suns result in all of the sides of t...
In the event of our sun suddenly becoming a black hole or wormhole of sorts. It transports the earth to another solar system similar to ours. Would it be possible for our planet to start circling...
I am wondering how will it affect earth or none at all. Seeing that Jupiter by far is a gas giant and has really strong gravitational pull while Mars is mostly dormant, weak gravity and a terrestr...
Our estimates of our own habitable zone--a piece of space in which liquid water is possible--have varied over the years, but the current estimate is by Ramirez and Kaltenegger in 2017. Based on an ...
I'm looking for a more economical and efficient method of making steel for my project Death Star Unlimited, a mega infrastructure orbiting Mars with a mass of 500,000,000 metric ton give or take 1%...
I'll need to give some background to this question. I'm interested in the idea of a densely inhabited star system, and having large exomoons is one way that they can all orbit roughly at the same p...
In my previous question, I asked about how close can two stars in a binary system be for planets around them to stay earthlike, assuming that both stars have very sunlike and both planets very eart...
In the story I'm making, it is important that there are two suns in the sky, going at different rythms (maybe the planet orbits one of them each year, and the other each four years, for instance), ...
NOTE: If there is anything about this question that needs clarification or editing, please don't hesitate to let me know in the comments. Get ready, because you're in for quite a ride. I have t...
I have a K-type star (0.5 stellar masses) as the central body, and the planets are as follows (those I want to be in the habitable zone in bold): I: An uninhabitable rocky inner planet 50% the mas...
Background: It is sometime in the late 21st century. Several unmanned probes have recently been sent to land on and investigate Jupiter and Saturn's moons. Two sites in particular, Europa and Titan...
Stars are never green. When a star's spectra "peaks" in the green range, it also releases a significant number of waves of the adjacent colors - so "green" stars appear yellow or white. I want ...
I did the orbital period for a planet orbiting a mass = 1 sol with a 24-hour year, it's got a semi-major axis of 1.82 million miles - far and away beyond the Roche limit, still beyond the corona, b...
So I want my planet to have six suns, but I'm not sure how far apart these stars would have to be from each other to not produce adverse effects on the planet that would prevent life from developin...
I'm attempting to figure out the orbital physics of a system that has a habitable body that has intense periods of waxing and waning sunlight. I've come to the assumption that the best body for thi...
I want to have a two-world binary planet system where both have intelligent life, orbiting a single star. The two planets are assumed to be tidally locked to each other and orbit each other every 3...
Looking most specifically regarding the moons around Saturn, Jupiter, and Uranus. I've been unable to get a concrete answer on this through various sources. I've actually read several articles brie...
Far, far away from the Earth, there is a nebula. An enormous cloud made of 78% nitrogen, 20% oxygen and 2% other non-lethal materials. These gases swirl around a star, and the pressure around it is...
I am wondering about Tatooine, and was reading about binary systems here, which provided a lot of good basic food for thought. My specific question is not addressed at that link, and so I pose it h...
I read this and wonder now, what if we would introduce a new planet to our solar system; would the force of gravitation demand a similar plane as that of the other planets? Mercuries 6.3° indica...
If a space station were to be built in the outer solar system, is there an asteroid beyond Jupiter with a ratio of rare earth elements high enough to make it worthwhile to mine for the rare earth e...
Most stars have a continuously habitable zone (CHZ), but I'm specifically trying to think up ones that do not. Aside from pulsars and black dwarfs (theoretical, as the universe isn't old enough to ...
Now that we know about the electric nature of the cosmos, the question arises: "How much are planets affected by electric forces while moving through the universe?" We have been taught that the mov...
I'm building a S-Type binary system where the primary star is a black hole. Yet the system formed as a O + K-Spectral class binary and the 20 solar-mass O giant went nova 2,7 myr after both the sta...
We occasionally get questions and answers that discuss how close to each other planets can be and still meet some criteria. For example, this answer to the question ''Habitable'' planet close to a ...
I'd like to build a world that has one pole where it's constantly day (all year long) and the weather is very hot, and one where it's constantly night (all year long) and the weather is freezing. ...
Judging by our own planet we know what the effects of a moon on a terrestrial planet are. We also know that if a planet has two moons on the same side you would get insane tides and that two moons...
Part of my story will be set on a planet where a culture similar to that of the Old West has arisen - cowboys, frontier towns, homesteaders, etc. In order to make this development more plausible, I...
I am currently creating a world for a series of fantasy short stories (and hopefully movies one day), and I need some help with the science. Ideally, I would like the story to take place on a moon ...
I have a planetary system with a yellow dwarf similar to our own Sun and three habitable planets. I want to hide this system from sight and long range scans in a nebula, a giant cloud of dust and ...
In a sci-fi RPG I eventually intend to run for a couple of friends, I had the idea of them visiting ancient ruins on a planet orbiting a shedding red giant. Now, ignoring the problem of intelligen...
A moon is just a natural satellite - something orbiting a planet - so I'm interested in what kind of factors influence how many moons a planet can have, and how many moons a planet will actually ha...
