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In many science fiction stories, crystals where used by ancient alien civilisations to store information that could last millions of years. For example, in Stargate, "control crystals" that looke...
Considering our topic challenge, and the fantastic eclipse last Sunday a question came to me. Could there be a stable (relatively speaking) planetary system where a(n) eclipse/alignment would actu...
In this question, it's pointed out that the L3 Lagrange point, where a "true" Counter-Earth would lie, is in fact unstable, and over time any object there would drift into a different orbit. Obvio...
My basic question is could life 'as we know it' (carbon DNA/RNA based, using water as the main solvent in metabolic processes) evolve on a planet where the temperature ranges from 16 degrees Celsiu...
In his Robot Series, Isaac Asimov mentions "yeast substitutes" as a way of creating enough food to feed everybody in the Cities. It's also mentioned in Prelude to Foundation. Here's a few quotes fr...
In my fictional world I have selected all parameters to maximize the Hills Sphere of my planet. The planet has three times Earth's mass and it is located in 2 AU from its star that's 1.4 times more...
I wrote a novel based on a human civilization that lives floating cities and dirigibles on a small, atmosphere-abundant super-Earth with a liquid water core (there's a smaller solid core under that...
In my story, I have a small extended family of 30 to 40 individuals ranging in age from 0 to 50 who are on the run from Chinese and Japanese forces in 1400AD. No place in Asia is safe for them. By...
Earth is more massive than Mars, so people on Martian soil would definitely suffer some health issues due to weaker gravity. Blood circulation is badly affected as heart muscles starts to deteriora...
The idea of uploading one's personality and consciousness to a computer is a semi-common science fiction trope. It has been suggested as a way to essential immortality. In a story I'm working on, ...
I want to play with the idea of a sapient species evolving on a world where at least part of the world experiences a permanent day. The obvious way to doing this would be where part of the world f...
This question is a sort of follow-up to Samuel's previous world map question, Creating a realistic world(s) map - planetary systems. Lots of science fiction stories involve journeying to nearby st...
After writing this question, I came up with a new question. Consideration The considerations are mostly similar to the linked question (reading it is highly encouraged, as I am trying to post as...
Setting: we have a fantasy world which is a planet with much of the same conditions that can be seen on Earth, but with the difference that it is orbited by a moon with a mean diameter of 3 500 km....
The Sun has nowhere near enough mass to enter the branch of stellar evolution that would lead to a supernova, fortunately for us. However, there are planets that orbit stars that are destined to go...
An alien spaceship the size of an Empire State Building experiences a technical issues with its cloaking device, their duty technician needs 24 hours to repair and meanwhile the alien wants to avoi...
This question prompts me to evaluate the possibility that the romans or greeks could be blown in a storm to the Americas and survive if they had enough water provisions? Or maybe not provisions bu...
Epimetheus is a planet with about three times the mass of Earth orbiting a sun-like star in the Andromeda galaxy. However, two major factors separate Epimetheus from Earth. First, it has a thick at...
Could one (and how much) generate electricity by building a wall connecting: South Africa to Antarctica South America to Antarctica Northern Canada to Northern Greenland Northern Greenland to Rus...
This question discusses what you'd look at from space, but mostly focuses on how you could identify the weather. This question discusses what resources a colony would need, but doesn't discuss ho...
A really simple question - if you built a space elevator then you continue building past the geostationary point to put tension onto the tether. Now if you keep building out further and further the...
If the ozone layer of planet Earth was completely depleted (to near-zero concentrations), what would the average summer UV-index rise to in New York City? If relevant, other changes anticipated ar...
This is the first question in a series on the physical limits of the human body. The intent of this series is to, illustrate the upper and lower limits of human biology for the purpose of buil...
Consider a civilization with the industrial age technologies. Oil and coal are rare (probably used up). All products produced by oil and coal are also nonexistent. The civilization has invented ele...
Following on from this question: Can Cloud Nine be built? Let us assume we have constructed a Cloud Nine tensegrity sphere with a 2 kilometer diameter out of a durable material for use in Earth's ...
Setting The US is waging a failing War on Drugs where cartels are quickly gaining power. Scenario In the near future, say 2030, with current technology, the Texas state government is implementin...
The Halo video game's extended universe book Halo: Evolutions describes the Battle of Psi Serpentis, in which a superjovian planet is converted into a brown dwarf via massive nuclear bombardment of...
Given that a laser beam is made up of coherent light waves running in parallel in the same direction, and that space is not a complete vacuum (dust, radiation, electromagnetic forces etc.), what ki...
Many fantasy stories involve large spiders like in Harry Potter. These creatures behave almost exactly like normal spiders despite their size. My question is: can large spiders still walk upside d...
How dark would it be living in an impact winter? Where would an asteroid have to hit earth to cause an impact winter? gives a great breakdown of the effects of an impact winter, but I'd like to k...
As mentioned in this discussion: How to keep humans pilots instead of AI in sci-fi future? the ability to handle G forces is a limiting factor on what pilots can do. Some of my solutions to addres...
Mars is a cold, inhospitable, slightly damp ball of rock that would be very difficult to do things like grow crops on. However, it's also very far away. Far enough that, presumably, it would probab...
In 2015 we can rewind the TV, our CCTV footage and, if we wear an action cam, our latest adventure. However if we walk down the street and something happens we didn't quite catch, the annoying fact...
For those unfamiliar, An impact winter is a hypothesized period of prolonged cold weather due to the impact of a large asteroid or comet on the Earth's surface. (Wikipedia) In my world I want...
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...
A key part of the plot in a story I'm working on revolves around the main region being on top of volcano that is set to erupt. The trouble is that the region in question in my setting is roughly th...
I'm not into psychology, but I've heard a lot about veterans who have committed suicide, went crazy, became addicted or have their lives ruined in other ways because of the shock they lived through...
Before we begin, this system is created by aliens, and all orbits are on the same plane. These orbits are similar to earth's in shape. So, none of this has to occur naturally it just has to be stab...
In the near future, drones replace military fighter jets that require human pilots. These drones will be travelling at many times the speed of sound. Highly sophisticated drones will be able to eva...
This is inspired by What single element could destroy the world?. Injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere has been proposed as a mechanism to relieve the symptoms of global warming by creatin...
Vertebrate tooth enamel is made from Hydroxylapatite, however this need not be the only material available that an alien species could use to make teeth or tooth-like structures. Given that an ide...
All the worlds I've seen built by me or others have surfaces that are mainly water. Is it possible for a habitable world to exist if the world is mainly land? I'm only talking about 55-65 percent l...
Let's say that the world has successfully converted and only depends on renewable resources for our home energy needs. In fact, we have a massive surplus - currently in the form of raw electricity ...
Suppose we have a rocky planet (somewhere between Earth- and Super-Earth- sized) orbiting a star far enough away that it would be around Pluto's temperature if sunlight was the only heat source. If...
So, imagine a team of space marines, fighting some sort of space bug zombies on a planet's moon. Things are going pretty bad for them, and the last surviving protagonists are running for their live...
Arising from the comments in This Question, which started to stray offtopic into the question of whether men are needed at all. In Short: Could you create a fertilized human (necessarily female) f...
I have a story where a species of the very first (literally first) carbon-based humanoid life (surprise!) that happen to emerge roughly seven billion years ago (their home system were formed twelve...
Lets say I have a space fleet flying to attack an installation. The enemy knows I'm coming but not my numbers or exact disposition. Since I'm moving much slower then C the light from my fleet wil...
As the legend goes, Coca-Cola was planning on shooting lasers at the moon to project their logo. Unfortunately, the FFA said no (they didn't want planes to be blinded). I haven't been able to confi...
I have an engine with unlimited $\Delta v$. Don't ask how I got it, it's probably one of my earth changing inventions. Either way: I no longer like Earth and want to get off (I'm headed for a reti...
