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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...
I am currently trying to make a world that has casual interplanetary commutes with near future technology (within one century); so, to find a reasonable top speed for crafts in my interplanetary wo...
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...
For a SciFi project I work on I have a space-station orbiting earth that uses an 8 hour 3 shift system for its staff. Each shift is assigned to one-third of the countries and organizations on earth...
This is a follow-up to Neutron Star mining. Assuming that problem can be solved, it would eventually degenerate to something similar to this case. And if it can't, white dwarfs seem like the next b...
So lots of Sci-fi works use mono-crystalline diamond as a wonder material used to build all sorts of impressive and in some cases seemingly impossible structures, I'd like to ask about the science ...
So I'm thinking about orbital warehousing of raw materials but I'm wondering whether one would actually need an orbital structure to store the goods inside or could you just strap a booster to the ...
If a parasitic creature was discovered, how would officials determine whether that parasite was a new species or an existing parasitic species? How long would that process take? Assume the specie...
Is there any way for a planet to host, even a tiny amount, of matter in a superfluid form, without outside intervention, given that Helium-4 becomes a superfluid below 2.17K, and that according to ...
My worldbuilding involves a reasonably near-future, high-realism space station research outpost, and I'd like it to be powered by a nuclear reactor. However, I need as much detail on the actual rea...
Project Orion was a project to construct a spacecraft that rode the shockwaves of nuclear blasts as a form of propulsion, but the project was abandoned because of budget cuts, environmental concern...
So I'm writing a story (set well into the future and on a different, but similar to Earth planet colonised by humans) and as part of it I am including specs and designs for the armour that the mili...
I'm working on a species of large bird, and trying to determine whether they will be able to fly or not. I know that this equation likely applies: $$ A = \cfrac{L}{\cfrac{1}{2} v^2 \rho C_L} $$ ...
In Larry Niven's short story "Bordered in Black", there's a planet (Sirius B-IV) with much lower gravity than Earth. As a result, the planet has a gentler atmospheric pressure gradient, i.e., the a...
I am creating a creature which uses infrasound to immobilize prey and I have done a little bit of research on the effects of Infrasound on animals, finding that 177 dB with a frequency between 0.5 ...
If the holograms are really advanced like the hologram of Snoke in The Force Awakens and they are haptic, which means you can feel them, can they be used to make an immersive virtual reality envior...
There is a predator that lives in the forest. It is roughly the size of a large bear, and moves quite slowly - a person could outrun it at a light jog. Nor is it agile - although its arms and jaw...
A star system consisting of two stars forms, with one being more massive. As such, the larger star soon exhausts its fuel and ends up as a neutron star. The secondary star has a semi-major axis of ...
I've been reading here for a little while, but this is my first question. I am trying to come up with either a concrete set of numbers for a single answer for a binary planet system, or a simple fo...
I know the default will be blue, but just HOW blue, i.e., wavelength in nanometers? I have a world with the following stats: Radius: 4628 km. Mass: .35 Earth (2,09076 x 10^24 kg). Atmospheric D...
The sun is perfectly fine, but for generations, not a single human has seen sunlight. Earth is completely covered in black fog, reaching high up into the atmosphere, so that not even skyscrapers ca...
Here is a link to an online animation of stars' movements in a trinary system. Basically, the three stars are orbiting around a barycenter; one (yellow in the animation, mass = 1) closer to it a...
So I want a large power source to heat my new real estate on the Jovian moons. I create a micro black hole (MBH), maybe a few kg, maybe more and drop it into Jupiter. I expect the following to h...
Blood of most vertebrates contains hemoglobin, which contains iron. I've imagined a world where someone once had a seemingly stupid idea of using blood as a source of iron. Now, the world is analo...
My plot is to have temples,castles and cities built on top of the remains of previous structures repeatedly to create a multi-level underground dungeon. My goal is to figure out how many levels thi...
The end goal is to have human like beings with vestigial horns or antlers, but I am unsure of what types of horns they should be. Apparently there are three type of horn: living horn-bony outgr...
Given modern technology, what kind of bandwidth could you expect for communication with an extrasolar spaceship? For example, is HD video possible? Is it safe to assume it would vary by distance? O...
For starters, allow me to define more carefully what I am asking. For now I am not worried about any of the following, as if this question is answered they will be covered in later questions: Bon...
Consider an interstellar spaceship. It is a rather classical design, somewhat similar to the ISS Venture Star from Avatar: http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Interstellar_Vehicle_Venture...
This is in reference to Could an organism have evolved to kill its prey by shouting at it? However, most answers here speak towards the brute force side of the equation, measure by it's decibel le...
For a while now I've been building a science fiction world and I've been thinking what would be a feasible way to power a large ship capable of interstellar travel. I've always disliked the idea on...
Using my world changing invention and my massive intellect I have created the perfect defensive tool for myself and any minions valued friends I deem might need one. The tool is a super suit that ...
I'm designing a world, and I want it to have major geological changes over a short period of time. This includes continental drift, which I'm assuming should have some interesting results. In parti...
Our universe is described as having three physical dimensions, plus one time dimension, where the eigenvalues for the physical dimensions are all the same, but the eigenvalue for time is opposite (...
I'm currently writing a story, but however I'm having trouble with one part. The hero is faced with a situation where he has to create a fire strong enough melt 5 kg of copper, and he only has a ma...
Nuclear rockets, or as I like to think of them, "half way between a continuous small atomic explosion and reactor whose front fell off". There are many variants, and my aliens are using relative si...
Currently, Earth's eccentricity (orbital shape) is 0.0167086. Zero is a perfect circle whereas One is parabolic escape orbit and any greater becomes a hyperbola. And in the theory of the Milankov...
I've read that even in a "perfect" vacuum, matter exists in the form of virtual particles that spontaneously pop into existence only to be immediately annihilated. This suggests to me that it might...
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...
In recent years, we have discovered exoplanets that defy our traditional perspectives on how planets work. WASP-17b is twice as wide as Jupiter, yet half as massive, probably because of its orbita...
Planet has these characteristics: Half of the planet is always on day, and other half is always night (it rotates at the same velocity as its orbit) There are no underground water sources; it's a...
I was thinking about making up a visor like Batman has in the Arkham series, where he "analyzes" a sample and then he can set a filter on his visor for particles of that compound. Something like a...
In an effort to reduce the murder rate I want to greatly increase the chances of getting caught. To do so I invented a device that will record your last words (and potential the murderer's and your...
I'm currently working on a Sci-Fi setting for my friends to use in a campaign (my friend is GM but he's too lazy to come up with a setting so I offered to do it), I've already worked out the minor ...
I know that moon composition and atmosphere (if it exists) will influence how reflective a moon is, but I was hoping for a fairly exhaustive list of materials that moons are actually made of, how r...
And how much fuel would you need to carry? I'm trying to determine what kind of engine you'd need to accelerate a good-size spacecraft (thousands to millions of tons) at a constant 1g in a race acr...
When thinking about a potential answer to this question about preventing flight in a cyberpunk dystopia, I had an idea that I do no possess sufficient knowledge to prove/disprove. Thus you'll be t...
In DC's TV-series (and comics), Barry Allen is The Flash: a superhero powered by the speed-force. This speed-force allows him to move incredibly fast, can be transferred to others, and there also e...
A Kardashev Type III civilisation has need of a long-scale timepiece, and as such has arranged a series of planets around a black hole such that their orbital periods can be used to tell the time i...
Mars has a couple of problems with regards to colonization such as lack of atmosphere, lack of magnetosphere, weak sunlight, and a few others. Of concern in this question is how to shield human col...
