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Rigorous Science

Q&A with a focus on more stringent analysis. Questions and answers should be well-researched, clearly explained, and supported with references, equations, or empirical evidence based on current, widely-accepted science. Please read the category guidelines.

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Is a balloon rocket launch pad possible?

Rockets consume a lot of fuel and carry not eough payload. To reduce the fuel needed, why not send it in the mesosphere? Imagine a big balloon, capable of carrying a small rocket to the mesosphere...

4 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Mmeyer‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Mmeyer‭

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How does one calculate the tidal heating of a satellite?

I've been searching for hours, and most formulas I can find use complex/imaginary numbers or variables that I don't know or can't find out (such as the imaginary part of the planet's love number, w...

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by Alexader Ferguson‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Alexader Ferguson‭

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Making a Counter-Earth

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...

2 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Kromey‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Kromey‭

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Could a Tank Survive a Nuclear Blast?

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...

5 answers  ·  posted 9y ago by Serban Tanasa‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Serban Tanasa‭

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Could I put a large city into geostationary orbit?

I want to put a circular city in geostationary orbit. The city will have a radius of 20Km. I was thinking of using quantum trapping/levitation to achieve this. Here's what quantum trapping is: ...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by The Last Remnant‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by The Last Remnant‭

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Cosmic Background Radiation in the past

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...

2 answers  ·  posted 9y ago by Hendrik Lie‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Hendrik Lie‭

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How would you heat colonies in the outer solar system (by using natural systems)?

By Colonies 'in' the outer solar system I mean the various moons and space stations past the asteroid belt. Currently the Hegemony has established bio domes, mining stations, and a few large scale...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Celestial Dragon Emperor‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Celestial Dragon Emperor‭

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The polar ice caps are melting. Can I replace them with icebergs made of pykrete?

Pretend I'm writing a story about a world exactly like our own. Real world physics, no magic, modern technology. Suddenly an eccentric world leader comes up with the idea to replace the melting gl...

5 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Pharap‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Pharap‭

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Petri-dish Animals

There's a Thylacine that's found in Tasmania, unfortunately they only found a single female specimen. It it possible to grow Thylacines artificially (say like in an artificial womb) of both male a...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by MnIce‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by MnIce‭

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Secret Hangar Location Needed for Entropy-sensitive Nano-bots

Premise In this Earth-like world, a multi-billion dollar privately owned aerospace/defense corporation is devising a secret plan to manufacture a fleet of nano-bots. These nano-bot have swarm inte...

4 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Arash Howaida‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Arash Howaida‭

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Is it realistic to "salt the earth" in a kingdom/around a city?

I have a story in which a King, knowing his kingdom will fall, would like to have a scorched earth policy. The King would order all residents to begin salting the earth to ensure nothing there can ...

5 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Thatguypat‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Thatguypat‭

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How would humans and society react to a superhero existing and saving the earth?

This is going to be a test run of hard-science, social science edition. This is in accordance with http://meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/2348/8914. Okay, so a meteor is about to hit the ea...

5 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by PyRulez‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by PyRulez‭

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What would be an actual real life mechanisms of an accelerated healing factor?

I'm writing a rough sketch for a book about a world where people sorta violently and suddenly get barely working superpowers. That is every time each person uses their power they run the risk of ki...

4 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Shotgun ‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Shotgun ‭

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Need a way for Earth not to detect an extrasolar civilization that has radio

The exposition is that a civilization exists about 200 light years from earth and has been capable of radio communication for several thousands of years. They are not trying to hide from detection ...

17 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by MoreOrLess‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by MoreOrLess‭

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Chemical element made with alternative particles

In my earlier question, regarding airships, I mentioned fictional gas, as light as hydrogen but non-flammable. Is it possible to make chemical element, with atoms made not from nucleons, but with s...

5 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Mranderson ‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Mranderson ‭

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With current technology, what would be the best way to store energy for future generations?

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 ...

19 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by DoubleDouble‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by DoubleDouble‭

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Can medieval people make a potato gun?

The spud gun uses air pressure to shoot a projectile - unusually a potato - at high speed towards a distant target much similar to todays revolvers. The only difference is that there is no gunpowde...

4 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by user6760‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by user6760‭

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The last ride of The Magic Schoolbus: Termination of the ignorant

It's been 21 years Ms. Frizzle has been doing her best to educate the masses. Even with all the knowledge available provided on the internet, not only do people not take advantage, they choose to ...

1 answer  ·  posted 8y ago by bowlturner‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by bowlturner‭

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Could you turn the asteroid belt into one giant full spectrum interferometer?

For the purpose of this post, full spectrum means a non-trivial number of frequencies within a non-trivial band. So human eyes aren't full spectrum within the visual range (each cone is wide band, ...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Imipak‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Imipak‭

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Deep Space Communication Infrastructure

What kind of technology would be required for a space travelling civilization to have an effective communication system or network that is similar in speed to the telegram? How would it work? This ...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by System‭

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What goods would be worth trading between Earth and Mars?

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...

10 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by ckersch‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by ckersch‭

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Replacing Jupiter with a brown dwarf?

This is a purely hypothetical question but I can't find a satisfactory answer to it. Let's say somehow Jupiter collects enough mass to be considered a brown dwarf. Let's assume Jupiter achieves a...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by tempestwing0101‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by tempestwing0101‭

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How could an earth like planet increase the amount of oxygen in the air

How could the amount (total mass) of oxygen be increased on a planet like Earth (with a similar atmospheric composition), preferably by natural processes? For the sake of having a ballpark number...

8 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by lijat‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by lijat‭

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How much liquid hydrogen to stop neutron radiation?

I have a spaceship that's powered by an efficient hydrogen fusion drive, but the drive outputs a large amount of dangerous neutron radiation as a side effect, and those neutrons are not captured an...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by TPK‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by TPK‭

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Azidoazide Azide Storage and Weaponization

AA (azidoazide azide) is a hyper-explosive 14 nitrogen molecule. My questions are: what are some theoretical ways to store it so it doesn't explode on you but on the enemy you throw it at, and what...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by Amoeba‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Amoeba‭

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Runaway Starship Ramps

This question is partially a spinoff of some points that came up in another recent question at Worldbuilding about interstellar space travel. Runaway Truck Ramps I live in Colorado, and on the do...

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by ohwilleke‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by ohwilleke‭

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Recipe For the 300-Mile Wide Crater

66 million years ago, a space bomb ten kilometers, or six miles, wide raced through the atmosphere at 20 kilometers per second and landed on the Gulf of Mexico at an angle of 90 degrees. The resul...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by JohnWDailey‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JohnWDailey‭

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How would people conceivably escape a planet too large for chemical rockets?

I was reading this article from NASA about chemical rockets and they argue that, with a planet 50% larger than the Earth (assuming similar density, about 1.5G surface gravity), it would be impossib...

11 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Jarred Allen‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Jarred Allen‭

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At what rate would this renaissance-esqe mining operation proceed?

There is a group of people with about renaissance-level technology clearing out underground granite. They have no access to work animals. 700 men are working at any given time. Mining Using rena...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by NeoBourne‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by NeoBourne‭

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Space elevator into a blackhole. Possible?

Inspired by Spaceship orbiting a black hole under the event horizon - a prison where no one escapes, I was wondering if it is possible to make a space elevator that goes down into a black hole. In...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by PyRulez‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by PyRulez‭

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What if a traversable wormhole hits the earth?

So, I the question of what if a black hole hits the earth has been asked to death by various people, but what if the somewhat tamer wormhole hits the Earth? In particular, we'll say that one mouth...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by PyRulez‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by PyRulez‭

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The Great Deoxygenation Event

Assume an Earth-like or super-Earth terrestrial planet in a state comparable to Precambrian or Archaen Earth. The atmosphere is mainly nitrogen and carbon dioxide, perhaps some methane, but very li...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by rek‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by rek‭

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Lunar maria, always on the side facing the planet?

Suppose we have an Earthlike planet, with a rocky moon orbiting it. Under what conditions would dark lunar maria form on its surface, and would they always be on the side facing the planet? For Ear...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by taylor swift‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by taylor swift‭

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Can Cloud Nine be built?

Cloud Nine is the name given by Buckminster Fuller to his proposed tensegrity sphere airborne habitats. The principle is simple and the physics seem to be sound. For a sphere, as its radius is ...

10 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Samuel‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Samuel‭

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Fire Hazard of Human Domed Cities on Planet with Methane CO2 Atmosphere?

I'm working on a sci-fi book, and a chapter I'm currently on is about a guerilla attack on a human city on the planet. The outer atmosphere is mostly CO$_2$ and methane. The aliens breathe methane...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by JTriptych‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JTriptych‭

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How can a civilization survive proton decay?

In a very distant future people have survived by slowing the metabolism to extremely long timescales, reducing the energy consumption per time. It is causing thought processes and movements to be e...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by Zeick‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Zeick‭

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Advantages and disadvantages to having 12 DNA bases

So I was curious what would be the advantages and disadvantages to have 12 DNA bases? For example could it be used to store complex memories in an organism, could it cause very complex structure in...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Amoeba‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Amoeba‭

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Could gas be harvested from a Chthonian planet?

Chthonian planets are gas giants that orbit their stars so closely, the intense heat from the star strips off the gas giant's atmosphere, leaving behind a tail of gas. This turns the gas giant into...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Gliese‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Gliese‭

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In a world without aging, how do we age?

EDIT: As it turns out the method I had thought of using to combat aging doesn't work the way I expected. As such I have rethought this question in more vague terms. New Question: Using current hyp...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Douglas‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Douglas‭

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Could edible fish live in a large water tank used as a radiation shield on a spacecraft?

As a source of food, would it be possible to have fish and/or plants living inside a water tank situated between the fusion or fission power plant and the crew quarters of a ship? The ship in ques...

3 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Smoj‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Smoj‭

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What are the conditions of an Earth-like, water-ball planet?

I'd like to explore some details on a so-called water-ball planet (i.e. a planet in the habitable zone of a sun, covered by a 100 km deep ocean). I am particularly interested where life could devel...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by jk - Reinstate Monica‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by jk - Reinstate Monica‭

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What would Alien Talking Heads sound like?

We know from the International Pronunciation Alphabet (IPA) and the research that gave us the IPA, what sounds typically used in human speech (certainly not all sounds that can be made). This is al...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by Green‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Green‭

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Limits of energy generation in mixing animal and plant by-products or storage

In the question of a biological cannon How would a Biological Cannon work? , one option was to use biological by-products for chemical propulsion of the cannon ball. It might have also been propel...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by asylumax‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by asylumax‭

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Could humans alter the moon's orbit significantly with current technology?

A terrible virus has made most of the populations and government officials of the largest superpowers on Earth stark, raving mad, without depriving them of their intelligence. They have decided t...

10 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Revetahw says Reinstate Monica‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Revetahw says Reinstate Monica‭

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Can this planetary system remain stable?

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...

3 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Xandar The Zenon‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Xandar The Zenon‭

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The Tree of Youth

There exists a single solitary tree at the mouth of a small river. This tree is basically a fountain of youth, granting immortality to anyone who eats it's grapefruit-sized fruits. As you can ima...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Acumen Simulator‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Acumen Simulator‭

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How to fire your engines for a near-future trip around the solar system?

Background I was pondering my answer to this question. I asked myself, "Why would I only do a 45-minute burn and then float for 3 months to get to Mars?". Then I answered, "Because you only have ...

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by kingledion‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by kingledion‭

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Circulation patterns on a tidally-locked binary planet

A targeted hard-science spin-off from this question: In a tidally-locked planet that rotates about a barycentric point that's located outside of its own sphere, what would the coriolis forces be l...

3 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by JDługosz‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by JDługosz‭

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How would I calculate how much of Venus would be covered in water if 8.8E16 m^3 was added to its surface?

If $8.8 \times 10^{16} m^3$ of water volume is added to the surface of Venus, how would I calculate how much of Venus would be covered in water? The land of Venus has its topographical features wi...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Hendrik Lie‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Hendrik Lie‭

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How would characters find out they were living in a rotating habitat with only medieval tech?

Three natives who study their version of science on the surface of a large rotating habitat located in a cylindrical shape in the space between our solar system and Alpha Centauri, are trying to fi...

9 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Sean Mignosa‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Sean Mignosa‭