Activity for smithkm‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Question	—	What makes one pole of a planet north vs south? Given a planet without any relationship to Earth, what does it mean for the poles to be "north" or "south"? Is it something arbitrary that can be changed? (more)	—	over 9 years ago
Question	—	What does it mean for something to be 'knocked out of its orbit'? The idea of knocking a satellite out of its orbit is common in fiction, but what does it actually mean. (more)	—	almost 10 years ago
Question	—	What basic principles should I keep in mind when scaling things up and down? Making things bigger or smaller is common in speculative fiction (giant ants, tiny people, planets bigger than stars, and stars smaller than light bulbs.) What general principles should be kept in mind when making things bigger or smaller? (more)	—	about 10 years ago
Question	—	How critical is it for life that a planet remains within the habitable zone at all times? Important note: The orbits in the diagram are elliptical. They have low eccentricity so they appear to be off centre circles but they really are ellipses with the star at a focus. The habitable zone around a star is the range of distances at which a planet which would have liquid water and otherw... (more)	—	about 10 years ago
Answer	—	A: What Factors Could Cause a World to See "Northern" Lights Much Closer to the Equator? You could eliminate the magnetosphere entirely which would let the solar wind hit the atmosphere directly. Of course this would be on the day side, not the night side. To get it to hit the night side, you need to use the magnetosphere, and that will only pull the particles into rings near the magnet... (more)	—	about 10 years ago
Answer	—	A: Are geographically typed planets realistic? Planets which have something that we might consider to all be a single climate given the way we classify things based on earth is entirely plausible, for certain climates at least. Mars easily qualifies as a desert over its entire surface. There is climate variation, but all of it is something we w... (more)	—	about 10 years ago