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A liquid based approach could be done. There are a number of biologically produced substances that are flammable. The dragon would just need to produce a quantity of it and store it in a gland of s...
50 nanometers is awfully small. In fact, this is on the same order as many viruses, which can be 20-300 nm in size; to a first order approximation, this figure seems a good fit for Cort Ammon's est...
One idea is that a really cold world doesn't have to be a dead world. Bowlturner is right that moisture in the air or snow is going to knock out the dust pretty fast, and so you'll have to replenis...
To me, it is clear we need to start with a bird and evolve human-like features, as opposed to vice-versa. I will start with a bird whose name already implies where we are going- the harpy eagle (H...
This is an exceedingly tricky question. Determining the stability of this system is akin to determining the stability of the Solar System, a difficult - and currently unfinished, as far as I know -...
So brushing away the problems with making a spider big enough to be "half human": What kind of world changes are necessary to make giant spiders feasible? Biology wise It could still have the same...
Inject him with a small explosive device near the brain stem. The device is constantly listening for a radio signal that is being transmitted around his cell, like a dead mans switch. The device c...
Cat pee glows under a black light. Cats on this world use their pee as a defense mechanism against other cats, and are constantly spraying each other. They also have evolved very porous fur. Th...
1 - Is this system viable ? I think the buck stops here, really. No, it's not viable. What you are proposing is perhaps "possible" in some limited sense (but as already pointed out by others,...
First off, plus/minus a few billion kilometers in any direction actually isn't that terrible, particularly if you have FTL and/or are already dealing with interstellar distances. For comparison, th...
Triangulation does not require being able to determine distance. Here is an example on an earth-bound maritime navigational chart: The ship in this situation would need to know in advance that ...
There are several possibilities - actually, quite a few - for the development of life in the Degenerate Era. Some have potential; some don't. The planet is a rogue planet. It has been proposed th...
No, they will not be able to reach space. At least if we assume that our understanding of physics is correct. Since you do not state anything to the contrary, that's an assumption I am willing to m...
As the others have said, without anti-gravity it won't work, with anti-gravity you can pretty much do whatever you want. Just a few things to think about With a diameter of 1 light year ($5.879 ...
Use a geoid. A geoid is, to quote Wikipedia the shape that the surface of the oceans would take under the influence of Earth's gravitation and rotation alone, in the absence of other influence...
Doing a simple density calculation, I get $$\rho=\frac{0.09M_{\oplus}}{\frac{4}{3}\pi R^3}\approx15.97\text{ grams/cm}^3$$ For comparison, here's a list of the average densities, $\bar{\rho}$, of t...
The lasers will need energy. A lot of energy. Possibly several terawatts of energy each. So you'll need to put them somewhere they can get energy. So put them in orbit around one of the gas giants,...
Have you considered a Sitnikov planet? Image courtesy of Scholarpedia user Christoph Lhotka under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. A Sitnikov planet moves on an axis, pe...
One thing we have to take into account is that you can only accelerate for the first half of the trip. You then have to decelerate for the second half; otherwise, you won't be able to stop unless y...
For the TL;DR, see the bottom of the answer. See also What would it take to get a message to another star? on Space Exploration SE. We can approach answering this by considering how sensitive ou...
I have two main points. Compressibility. Your idea of his body forming an indentation rests on the assumption that the Earth's core is incompressible. This is not true. While it is thought to be ...
I think you'd need to add a condition - something like once under the surface, remote drones or fast vehicles can't be used (insert reason of your choice) because otherwise you could very rapidly e...
As anyone who's studied inorganic chemistry knows, many salts of copper in the +2 oxidization state have colors ranging from green to a nearly black dark blue, including some remarkably intense sha...
If the planet was pretty close to the star that could do it, such that ships outside of the umbra/penumbra would be hit by the full force of the solar radiation and thermal energy. That is kind of...
Research suggests that heavier elements can be found in greater quantities closer to the center of a spiral or elliptical galaxy. Henry & Worthy (1999) summarized several measurements of ratios...
