Activity for Gryphon‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Question	—	Incoming Rogue Planet! When do we see it? So say there was a rogue gas giant about the mass of Jupiter that, unfortunately, happened to be headed directly at Earth (or at least close enough to knock it into an orbit incompatible with life). It's coming in from way out of the plane of the solar system, so it's not going to knock anything els... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Question	—	Could dinosaurs breathe modern air? During much of the Cretaceous period, oxygen levels were substantially higher than they are currently, with estimates indicating that around 30% of the atmosphere consisted of oxygen. Obviously, this indicates that species that evolved during this time period would be likely to require these levels ... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Question	—	Flash-heating spaceships I'm working on a version of wormhole-based FTL travel, and one of the side effects of passing through the wormhole is going to be instantaneous heating of every molecule of the thing passing through. The heating works by dumping a specific amount of thermal energy into every molecule of the object pa... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Question	—	Flash-heating humans I'm working on a version of wormhole-based FTL travel, and one of the side effects of passing through the wormhole is going to be instantaneous heating of every molecule of the thing passing through. The heating works by dumping a specific amount of thermal energy into every molecule of the object p... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Question	—	Methods and Feasibility of Antimatter Mining? Say 200-300 years in the future, humankind has colonized much of the solar system, using a combination of laser thermal drives and solid-core nuclear rockets (fusion never really panned out). Suddenly, astronomers spot an odd object entering the solar system. The object turns out to be a kilotonne-... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Question	—	Biological Blimps: Propulsion A while back, I asked this question about the plausibility of giant floating whales and received an excellent and high-scoring answer from Dubukay demonstrating that, given the assumptions that Dubakay made, the idea was unfeasible. However, more recently I discovered some flawed assumption in the a... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Question	—	Scaling Up Internal Mass Drivers? Internal mass drivers are a potentially useful space drive, due to the ready availability of reaction mass (you can use anything from spare parts to literal dirt as a propellant, assuming you have a ferromagnetic bucket that you decelerate and retrieve at the end). However, on long trips on which in... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Question	—	Effects of Explosive Decompression on the Human Body? Many science fiction stories, movies, and shows involve characters undergoing explosive decompression, the technical term for a rapid drop in pressure, usually all the way to a vacuum. Frequently, this is used as capital punishment, since shoving someone out the airlock without a suit is an efficien... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Question	—	Maximum Personal Time-field Speed? One day, you suddenly get superpowers! Whoo-hoo, you can speed up or slow down the flow of time for yourself. This means you can run faster than a jet, right? So you decide to test it out. You go out to some deserted spot and start speeding up. You start running, and as you go faster, you start ... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Question	—	Earth becomes a rogue planet - how long can Iceland hold out? Inspired by this question and my comment on one of the answers. If the earth were flung out of the solar system, it would rapidly become far too cold for any unprotected life to survive on the surface. Any remaining humans would have to live in pressurized and heated domes. However, if the earth... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Question	—	A possible solution to stealth in space I'm sure most worldbuilders will have heard the aphorism that in space "Everyone sees Everything", or that "There Ain't No Stealth In Space". I'd like to propose a possible solution to this. The stealth ship would be a drone, probably used as a missile bus, and used for short to medium term missi... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Question	—	Viability of Fixed-Wing Biological Flying Creatures? How plausible are naturally-evolved, biological, fixed-wing flying creatures? Could such a creature plausibly evolve in Earth-like conditions? If so, what method would it be most likely to use for propulsion, and how large could such a creature realistically become? If such creatures are not plaus... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Question	—	Plausibility of Floating Whales Ignoring the plausibility of their evolution and sources of food, could a whale-like creature which internally consists largely of hydrogen bladders/gasbags realistically stay aloft? If these creatures are plausible, would larger creatures be able to float more easily, given that their volume (and... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Question	—	Anatomically Correct Charybdis Is there a realistic way that a Charybdis-like creature could evolve? Starting with roughly earth-like biology, what is the closest plausible creature to the mythical Charybdis that could exist? Charybdis is typically depicted as a gigantic mouth or mouth-like structure, large enough to swallow e... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Question	—	What changes to a planet would be necessary to allow the realistic flight of a gryphon with a human rider? How would a planet need to be changed (gravity, air pressure, air makeup, etc) to allow for the realistic flight and take off from a small hill of a gryphon with a human rider? You can assume the gryphon has hollow bones all through its body, but what other changes would be beneficial? I am asking ... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Question	—	How deep would a bunker have to be to prevent significant radiation seep? Thousands of years after a nuclear war that killed all life on the surface of earth, the descendants of the humans who fled to bunkers emerge... How deep would these bunkers have to be to prevent radiation seep (radiation radiating down) from significantly harming the people in these bunkers? The r... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Question	—	How could a creature get off a planet without technology? Imagine a spacefaring creature, one that colonises star systems, and then shoots some of its kind on to another system (the mechanism for doing this doesn't matter). The question is, how could this creature get into space in the first place. (It has to evolve on a planet, and be fairly large, eg. h... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: What would this nebula look like from a planet? It all depends on the scale and surface brightness of the nebula. For instance, the famous Orion Nebula is 1,344 light years. The Orion Nebula is a fairly bright nebula. However, if we replaced this nebula with the Tarantula Nebula, which is in another galaxy called the Large Magellenic Cloud, it ... (more)	—	over 7 years ago