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Given Earth's current level of technology, space- and ground- based astronomical tools, etc., to what extent would it be possible to locate the Milky Way from a somewhat distant galaxy, say, in ano...
The Technology We're in the year 2250 on an Earth-like planet. All the space on the earth's surface has been used up by the population of 15 billion, so we're moving into the air. Cities, along wi...
The story begins in classic disaster film style. A small rogue black hole is approaching our Solar System. It isn't going to get close enough to destroy everything, but it will agitate our Sun, ca...
It's becoming obvious from how could humans recognize another species as sentient / intelligent that recognizing another species' intelligence is very complicated. There are no universal tests, no ...
A simple enough question, but one that Grimmsdottir and I agonized over. Basically, what would enable close-ranged fighting between space fleets/ships? We both agreed that having gargantuan ships ...
Previously on the same setting (: How close is too close for a human habitation to be near an erupting volcano? What factors could delay the rescue of a small group of survivors on a Pacific volc...
Nowdays we have biometric doors that can scan your eye, palm, fingerprint, ear, etc, etc... But all of them rely on electronic readers and computers to match the sample against the stored pattern....
I am trying to understand the physics of an interstellar race. Say two ships are racing past a black hole as if it were a corner on a race track. One of the ships takes a hard line and comes very ...
I'm looking for various factors; Atmosphere Composition, Type of Sun, etc, whatever would work. That is, of course, if this is even likely/possible. I believe that yellow is generally not an ideal ...
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...
Holograms are a real thing. But what science-fiction TV shows and movies call holograms are something different entirely. From a classical geometric optics standpoint, in order to create the illu...
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...
One of the cool things about the Moon is that the far side has a thicker crust that the near side.1 One theory explaining this is that the Moon was hit by an object, possibly a moonlet created by t...
In the red corner, a top of the line Main Battle Tank, you can have your pick, but let's say a tricked out M-1A2 'Abrams' with a full Nuclear-Bio-Chem Protection kit. In the blue corner, a Nuclea...
A young B-type star (with a mass of about 10 M$_{\odot}$) is surrounded by a debris disk extending from about 2 AU to 1000 AU away. The disk has a mass of about 300 Earth masses - enough to form qu...
The question: What characteristics are necessary for a planet to be habitable for humans? What should the generic star and planet be like? The life forms are human, so they Need to have access ...
The question: What characteristics are necessary for a planet to be habitable for humans? What should the generic star and planet be like? The life forms are human, so they Need to have access ...
All the recent talk on Worldbuilding about the vast energies available to higher-level Kardashev civilizations, the need for 50,000 year message-systems, and so on, got me thinking. With enough ene...
There is this fantasy in fiction that humans meet another species and figure out that it's intelligent. This usually happens with dragons, dolphins, aliens, collectively intelligent plancton... Bu...
