Posts by Slarty
It would depend on the eccentricity of the orbit and the size of the orbit. So there are a number of orbital possibilities to consider. The problem even more complex because of a number of other va...
In world building it is often interesting to consider extreme landscapes "“ how tall can a mountain be on Earth for example. But what is the tallest mountain possible in any gravitational environme...
Roughly how long could an 'Oumuamua type object get if created naturally or if created artificially using fused rock? What would be the limiting factor governing the length of such objects? Oumaum...
Background A large star makes a relatively close approach to a solar system like our own and the orbits of many of the planets are badly perturbed. A planet similar to Earth is in the wrong place a...
I want to create a world where humans can live outside (perhaps with some protective clothing) but where very high winds exist in almost all potentially habitable areas making life outside impossib...
I want to create a tidally locked world with a habitable (broadly Earth like atmosphere and biome that humans could breathe and live in) band stretching around the terminator pole to pole. There wo...
I'm working on a first contact story set in the near future where an advanced alien species arrives at Earth and reveals itself to humanity, but is utterly baffled by the diversity of life that it ...
In a previous question I asked if a world similar to that envisioned in the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs / H G Wells could exist? And if so would canals be a practical way to make the planet habita...
Imagine a species one foot tall that has a relatively large brain for its size. The species has human like intelligence and in principle the ability to build anything that we could. It lives on a w...
My world is set in ancient times on a planet similar to Earth, but with a different civilization and different geography (and lots of canals). I need to find a way of giving the inhabitants better ...
I need a huge natural plateau to form but with a slope. There can be some variation, a few hills or even mountains here and there, but the ground needs to be mostly gently sloping north to south. ...
What are the most important factors in determining how fast technology progresses? And roughly how fast might that be under optimal circumstances? Innovations have to be dreamed up, but there mus...
Assuming that there is a means of increasing the spin rate of an existing black hole, what would happen to the shape of the event horizon as the spin rate was increased? In extremis what would even...
Imagine a planet of roughly the same size as Earth with the same amount of land, the same atmosphere and the same proportion of water (other planetary parameters may vary from Earth like) that has ...
How large could a solid planet be (in theory) without becoming a star or black hole? Too much in the way of light elements would lead to thermonuclear ignition, but too many heavy elements would ev...
Imagine an Earth-like world in all respects except that the Moon is much much closer. I think I'm right to say if the Moon were very close that tidal forces would slowly rob it of momentum and it ...
Based on the desert world from this question I need to transport around 500 cubic kilometres of water / year across a desert. Using this calculator. this can be achieved if the main feeder canal is...
In my desert canal world all water is supplied from the poles to the temperate zones via a canal network. I want to work out the amount of water that that is needed, so that I can work out the dime...
This question has similarities to this one but concerns canal travel in more ancient times and is aimed at finding an approximate speed of flow not variables. Background Assume an Earth-like world...
The enormous shield volcano that this question was based on was held up by magic or God. It presented some very interesting conditions for alternate worlds so I thought I would develop that train o...
How can I arrange for a planet to have a much greater temperature range between the poles and the equator without it being tidally locked? Edit: By "much greater" I mean the temperature at the pol...
Following on from my previous question here concerning the ancient civilization I have called the Androy and their struggle to survive terrible drought conditions on their planet. After years of s...
I previously asked What measures might an ancient civilization take to protect itself from extreme heat? The answers gave some useful suggestions as to how cities could be adapted. For convenience...
An ancient human like civilization exists on a planet like our own but warmer, with more deserts and smaller oceans. Climate change is forcing the daytime temperature slowly upwards. What measures ...
In Stephen Baxter's science fiction Novel Ultima humans discover mysterious "kernels" which allow high speed space propulsion units to be built. The problem is that these kernels are only to be fo...
