Posts tagged earth
Say an early human civilization is arising on an earth-like planet (Earth, in fact) with one notable difference to the sky: a small ring of debris orbiting the planet. Assume the ring is clearly vi...
The singularity has occurred and it wants an off-site backup. How deep should we all bury the lunar datacenter to be comfortably safe from radiation, cosmic rays, etc., while not causing cave-ins ...
My continent features a large canyon, perhaps 100 miles long and mile across. It is deep enough that descending to the bottom is dangerous and impractical. It is located primarily in an arid scrubl...
Aliens have come to Earth, and decided that the most intelligent life on the planet must live in the water, because it makes up most of the planet. They encounter dolphins and, upon learning to tra...
Would it be possible to raise a piece of land (say the size of Texas or France) from the bottom of an ocean (say, the middle of the South Pacific)? More specifically, would it be possible (given th...
I stumbled across Vincent's answer regarding forests and deserts. He claims an elevation difference of 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) could put a forest and a desert in close proximity. That got me thin...
In our universe, the energy of the sun generates heat and light. This helps keep the earth warm enough for life and drives much of the earth's climate. Warmth slowly bleeds off into the coldness of...
Grab the popcorn ladies and gents, I'm gonna talk about a movie real quick. In the movie Total Recall (2012), the main character and his friend step into a huge earth elevator/public transportati...
The time is near-future. For peripheral reasons, the United States and the people of Utah have just had it with the Great Salt Lake: everyone wants it empty. There is a justified need to use the ba...
Pretty straightforward. Is there an event which could get rid of the majority of the Earth's magnetic field quite suddenly, but only for about a decade? Could anything manmade assist in this?
Suppose there's an earth-like planet, perhaps even modern day earth itself - and at one point in time, it began to be bombarded by a continual stream of Electromagnetic Pulses. For the sake of sim...
How can I explain that it only rains at night (i.e. from dusk till dawn) in a certain region? Can or must I make this meteorological phenomenon apply planet-wide? Can or must I restrict rainfall...
Say you were to drop a (bunch of) human(s) at some past era of our Earth. I'm assuming they might encounter a few problems such as the composition of the air not being breathable, the water being t...
What would happen if a planet like Earth were to be tidal locked to the sun? What effects could it have on lifeforms like plants? Would they always produce oxygen?
DISCLAIMER: This question was closed on Astronomy Stack Exchange as off topic, so I'll try my luck here. I'm trying to understand the climatic effects of the far future scenario of an Earth-like p...
What's the biggest building we could build on the world? 90% of it must be air pockets that we can fit humans into Going underground is allowed, but you can't allow your building to turn to liqui...
I am an immortal, megalomaniacal supervillain with unlimited resources and patience. I want to slowly eliminate the Earth's axial tilt so that its equatorial plane is coplanar with its orbital pla...
Would a human being be able to run faster, jump high, etc. if the gravity on Earth weakened? I'm assuming a weaker gravitational pull would cause the muscle to deteriorate because the body no longe...
Context A God contest is organized. Each participants starts with a human-free alternate Earth and a certain amount of god-credits to buy humans and supplies. Some Gods used a big part of their bu...
My Earth is similar to our real Earth, and some scientists have found out a really cheap way to use geothermal energy. Huge generators are built, but one scientist eventually found out that the Ear...
I've been imagining an RPG universe consisting of eight solar systems orbiting around a black hole in a finite universe with an edge, and I'm wondering what the night sky would look like to beings ...
Imagine that the oxygen disappears from earth's atmosphere for some 10 seconds completely. what would be the casualties it would cause, what would be the climatic changes and other changes it would...
Consider the present day Earth. Now, through some event (magic, a giant maid with a vacuum cleaner, a disgruntled alien did it, ...), our planet is stripped of its atmosphere. Assume that this happ...
What could make polar areas of an earth-like planet habitable (non desert) and what side effect would it cause (i.e. how such planet would differ to contemporary earth)?
We are living on a planet where governments are constantly trying to reduce the amount of pollution and emissions in a bid to slow down (or reverse) global warming. But imagine a world where the Ea...
This is an extension of my first question, and precisely as Jim2B suggests, I want enough time to pass on my network of space stations for their inhabitants to forget why they're there, how they go...
I am trying to build a planetary system with a maximum number of earth/near earth like planets/moons. What would the maximum number of possible earth like planets be? I am assuming that some woul...
This is a multi-tiered question. I have seen these larger questions before, but if I need to separate them out into their own questions let me know. In my story I have a machine that can manipulat...
Normally, summers are supposed to be hotter than winters because the axis of the Earth is tilted toward the Sun during the hot season. This mean that the north receive more energy from the Sun, day...
Our omniscient God has decided to intervene for (arguably, if you ask some religious people) the first time at least in a very long time. For matters unknown to us, He has frozen all time on Earth...
Is there an energy substance, element, material, natural or artificial resource with attributes such that: When its moved it loses energy. When its intact, untouched and unmoved it contains energy.
Let's say I have an OCD and I want everything to be perfect. I want all the planets and The sun of our solar system to be equal in size. Apart from that, I want the distance between the orbits to b...
I was thinking of potential planet explorations, by extremely advanced alien species, through automated drones (or "flying laboratories") scanning and analyzing the planets. (By "extremely advanced...
On earth our continents move...real...real slow. This is of course a good thing for sentient life. I am trying to imagine/develop a world where...things move a bit faster...ok a lot faster, but i...
I was wondering if planets die after a certain amount of time, perhaps because of decay? If this is the case, how do they die and how long does it take? Do they implode? Explode or perhaps just f...
A Civilization with semi advanced Technology should be able to start climatic changes on a earth like Planet (same land mass to water surface ratio). What would the fastest way be and How? Some...
Variations of this question have been asked and answered previously but I am looking for something specific. Situation: Earth's body (mantel and crust) rotate at different rates than it's core (I ...
Can we harvest the fission energy inside of Earth and produce a energy beam powerful enough to destroy Near Earth Object such as an asteroid? Is this technology probable in the next couple of centu...
So some aliens come, put everyone in space suits, and drop us one the moon. The aliens are super smart, and the space suits have enough air for a year, and can't be damaged easily, and only upon fr...
In the terrible movie LA Apocalypse the planet's core destabilized causing the fault lines to erupt, magma spilled out, earthquakes going every 5 minutes. Eventfully things were resolved by detonat...
In a short story that I read (don't have the link, but the short story itself is not relevant to this question), it is set about a millennia from now, where humans have long since made contact with...
Currently, the crust varies from 4km (oceanic) to 10km (continental) to 30km (mountains). How would the earth be different if it was all 1/4 the thickness? So it was 1km, 2km and 7km? Would we ha...
So Earth has just suffered a horrible catastrophe and most of civilization is back in a Middle Ages level of development. A few people live on other planets relatively unscathed, with highly advanc...
I've been toying with an idea for ages that I think could be pretty fun but I want to make sure it's not wildly unrealistic before going too far with it. The idea is that the Equator is fiercely h...
Through extreme pollution and large-scale warfare with atomic, biological and chemical weapons Earth has become completely unable to sustain life. The atmosphere is toxic, the water undrinkable and...
In my scenario, a tremendous war wipes most of the humanity. While pockets survive here and there, the biggest part lives in one city, totaling around 3000 to 5000 survivors. It is also important t...
The Scenario: The Sun is eternal. We are producing much more oxygen than we need. First off, would the atmosphere grow, or would it just become much more dense? Given the circumstances, if th...
The long-term theory of climate patterns states that the Earth experiences an ice age, freezing over and remaining so for about 40 years, before returning to a normal, seasonal climate. My question...
The earth is migrating, somehow (it doesn't matter how, but it's not directly destructive) into a higher orbit over the course of a century. Details: The earth-sun distance will increase by 150...
On Earth, the polar bear is among the most sexually dimorphic animals, with males being on average almost twice as heavy as females (Wikipedia claims average weights of 450 kg for males versus 260 ...
