Questions tagged [atmosphere]
For questions about the gases which surround a planet or some other celestial body.
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How long would my pseudo-aurorae be visible?
I have asked questions like this before, relating to a phenomenon on my planet that is called pseudo-aurorae.
Background
X-rays of the [O VII] forbidden line in my star are constantly forming due to ...
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Could this hypothetical Super-Earth support human life?
The Question Could this hypothetical Super-Earth (Planet Y) support the lives of human settlers arriving from off world, or have I created any reasons for the planet to be inhospitable?
Planet Y
Star: ...
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Could this hypothetical Sub-Earth support human life?
The Question
Is a theoretical 2/3rds - 7/10ths Earth big enough to have the magnetic field, atmosphere and plate tectonics to do this, or will I wind up geologically killing the planet?
I have been ...
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Getting Water Vapour to Condense in the Lungs
So the human body temperature is much lower than that of the cave environment. That means that the air you're breathing is hotter than the inside of your lungs. In these conditions, the humidity from ...
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Is my planet's atmosphere livable for humans?
My planet has a atmospheric pressure of 1.4 atm. The gases that make up the atmosphere are 79% nitrogen, 18.6% oxygen, 1.4% argon, 0.5% water vapor, 0.3% xenon, 0.02% CO2, 0.01% krypton, 0.17% other ...
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Would the atmospheric circulation experienced on my world's high platforms seem to be reversed?
In this world, that rotates in the same direction and at the same rate as Earth, where the land platforms that cover around 10-20% of the world's surface is (magically) suspended at the 1 ATM level, ...
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How can I avoid the runaway greenhouse effect on a planet with 2x Earth masses and a dense thick atmosphere?
I've been working on a spec bio project with a planet which is 2x Earth masses with a dense atmosphere. However, I have one big issue : how do I avoid making a runaway greenhouse effect? Like the ...
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Colour of a Nitrogen rich atmosphere containing some SO2 and NH3?
I have a world orbiting an M7 red dwarf with an atmospheric composition like this:
96% N2,
2% NH3,
1% Ar
0.5% CO2,
0.5% SO2+Others
At 0.2 bars, with an Ammonia ocean (if that changes anything)
What ...
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Is this SpaceEngine atmosphere realistic?
Height of homogenous atmosphere: 15.26km
Atmospheric pressure: 4.76 atm
Air density: 4.8323kg/m^3
Air temperature: 45.704°C
Speed of sound: 364.65 m/sec
Exosphere temperature: 1255.9°C
Greenhouse ...
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Finding a stable atmosphere for a different gravity
I am trying to find what would be a stable atmosphere for a planet, using this https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cW7BIWlBUscqS9MVqs5gSbPH0OGzyE-j2cz6ADBSVzE/edit#gid=0 (you have to make a copy ...
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An atmosphere that gets denser with increasing altitude, to support these flying creatures
I'm thinking about implementing a race of flying creatures in my current setting: an earth-like planet with a breathable (enough) atmosphere. The easiest way to do this is just creating a race of bird-...
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Visibility of My "Psuedo-Aurorae"
I have been designing a habitable planet, its moon, and its star for a while now.
Background
My star is a K2V star with very strong solar wind and is about the age of the Sun. Every so often, when the ...
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Adaptations for a planet with high atmospheric pressure, to avoid nitrogen narcosis?
I'm building a some hypothetical habitable planets for a book, and one of these planets has a thick atmosphere (around 10 bar). I'm not sure if it's even possible, but I want to figure out how the ...
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Feasibility of a moon-planet orbiting an F star [closed]
I'm building an earth-type planet with typically human-like people, but a few differences. The human's particular area won't have much in the way of seasons being a large equatorial island. I'm ...
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Designing a catamaran as workable masted airship for swashbuckling on the maindecks
I am crafting a hybrid power/sailing airship that needs an exterior scene similar to swashbuckling on the main decks among the sails. Putting a mast on an airship with a big round envelope just isn’t ...
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On a planet with a 2 atm atmosphere, how would atmospheric pressure affect plant evolution?
Leaving aside the atmospheric composition (let's say there's the same amount of oxygen, despite the higher pressure), would the pressure itself have any effect? Would plants need to be stockier and ...
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Xenon Anesthetic Hazard
I have been designing a planet with an atmosphere of about:
Nitrogen (N2) - 61.5%
Oxygen (O2) - 21%
Neon (Ne) - 15.5%
Xenon (Xe) - 1%
Water Vapor (H2O) - 0.5%
Argon (Ar) - 0.479%
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) ...
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How could a planet accumulate xenon in its atmosphere?
I am currently creating a planet with an atmosphere rich in noble gasses, especially neon, xenon, and argon. It's composition is roughly about this:
Nitrogen (N2) - 61.5%
Oxygen (O2) - 21%
Neon (Ne) -...
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How many airborne bacteria can I put into the air while keeping it breathable?
I have a setting where I want the atmosphere to basically be filled, heavily and consistently, with a bunch of small, airborne bacteria-like cells/microscopic biomatter. For the sake of keeping the ...
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Would the substellar point on a tidally locked planet with a large continent over that point and oceans around the edges be covered in rainforest?
I have been working on a tidally locked planet for some time now. During this time I have worked under the assumption that the substellar point would be arid because of the constant bombardment of ...
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Behavior of narrow straits between oceans
I am trying to build a world that would have two oceans separated by a narrow sea/strait/passage.
Think of Drake's Passage, but bordered by large land masses from both north and south, like the ...
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What would happen if lightning couldn't strike the ground due to a layer of unconductive gas?
My world has an upper atmosphere similar to Earth's, and a lower atmosphere compromised of Sulfur Hexafluoride and water. In between is a layer of clouds. Massive treelike sulfite structures stretch ...
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Fire Analogue on Hydrogen Methane atmosphere Planet
Okay to summarize I have a planet with an approximate atmosphere of 44% nitrogen gas, 30% hydrogen gas, 23% methane and 3% other trace gases. I am working on an intelligent alien race on this planet ...
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Decaying Planets
Assume there is this planet with only one type of life; a planet-wide mat of microscopic lithotrophs. These creatures eat through the surface of the planet over time, converting the surface into gas. ...
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Chlorine-breathing insectoid species
I'm trying to come up with a plausible atmosphere of alien world (Callisto moon) inhabited by insectoid race (they live in caverns underneath/inside the ice crust). I read that chlorine is a much ...
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How would a fantasy civilization terraform Mars-like planets using magic?
Backstory
The fantasy civilization in question was stolen from this other question:
Which of these space colonizing civilizations has the advantage in a conflict
It is a civilization with Roman/...
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Could a slow rotating planet combined with high density atmosphere create high winds?
I am trying to design an alien ecosystem around a K type star. My idea was to have purple plants and high wind atmosphere so originally I wanted to make it tidally locked. However after watching some ...
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Is a blue sun/star visually possible with a orange sky?
I know an orange sky is achievable in at least two ways; large particles in the air (for example: smoke); or a thicker and:or denser atmosphere, so that light is getting bounced around and only longer ...
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The Finer Details Of A Global Ocean Planet
Some statistics (forgive the redundancy):
Radius - 5,400 mi or 8,690.458 km
Diameter - 10,800 mi or 17,380.915 km
Circumference - 33,929.2 mi or 54,603.754 km
Mass - 7.33x10^24 kg or approximately 1....
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Is there a reason for Rocket-style vertical takeoff craft when you don't need to bring reaction mass?
Reactionless Drives?
I have a sci-fi setting that takes place very far in the future. I like to think it tends toward the harder side of sci-fi, so I'm trying to minimize the number of Clarketechs (...
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How far can climate change go while still having enough of a biosphere to maintain a breathable atmosphere?
I’m running a one-shot campaign and I want it to be in a future where climate change has continued unabated but not so far that people can’t breathe on the surface.
Realistically, how hot can it get ...
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Could plants orbiting an active enough star (one that’s around F-type) evolve photo-voltaic cells as the star “calms down”?
Wanted to create Flora (and maybe organisms overall) that evolved near stark white coloration due to the high output of radiation from it’s, at the time, high energy F-Type star.
It’s a star and of it’...
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Will the oxygen content in atmosphere increase if we boil oceans? How much, and what's the max % increase?
From what I understand, Dissolved Oxygen is nothing but Molecular Oxygen (O2) loosely bonded with water -- and thus the bond is not chemical, and breaking it would not result to any changes in the ...
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Could there be an oxygen atmophere on a lifeless planet?
I would like to create an imaginary rocky planet, devoid of life, that nevertheless has an oxygen-rich atmosphere similar to that of Earth. Is there any way this is possible or can be explained?
...
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How dark would the sky have to be to stunt crops?
So basically in my world solar geoengineering has gotten to the point that (with added smog) it's basically impossible to grow crops like wheat or barley without artificial light. My question is: How ...
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Evolution of gun under 10 atm
I am currently building an Earth-like planet with 1g gravity and 10 atm(due to 10 times the atmosphere's molecules compare to Earth).
The atmosphere does not contain explosive gases. The exact ...
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What atmospheric conditions would prevent sound from traveling more than a short distance?
My story has an alien planet with an oxygen-based atmosphere about twice as dense as Earth’s. When on the planet, sound attenuation is much more rapid, so much that any noise more than fifty feet away ...
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How Would A Liquid Water Ocean Behave When Interacting With A Supercritial CO2 Ocean?
Assume an exoplanet like a colder (roughly habitable temperatures throughout) Venus with liquid water and a layer of supercritical carbon dioxide at the bottom of it's ocean basins. What would happen ...
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How would ammonia affect an otherwise breathable atmosphere? [duplicate]
I'm looking into an otherwise breathable but dense Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere, that happens to have 0.5-1% Ammonia in it - it roughly comes out to around 0.02 atm for Partial Pressure in total.
For ...
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Would a Denser Atmosphere cause Clouds to float higher?
So laying out a few things here: a planet has an atmosphere about 3.5 times denser than Earth with a marginally cooler average temperature (about 12 Celsius). It has a basic Nitrogen/Oxygen Mix, but ...
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Breathable air on large space habitat with no water?
I am theorising a scenario in which humans land on a continent-size space habitat of alien origin (probably a rotating habitat).
The gravity is similar to Earth's (96/97% of Earth's) and the air is ...
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Visibility and Atmospheric Pressure
How closely is a world's atmospheric opacity related to its atmospheric pressure? I know there are many things that will reduce visibility, like fog and smoke, but on average, how much would ...
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What would happen if a Europa-like moon "thawed"? [closed]
I have a planet and moon system orbiting a high mass star, something like a type A main sequence. Everything is only a short two billion years old, but the star is already starting to expand, warming ...
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Why does daytime on my planet resemble twilight/dusk?
The setting is science-fantasy, so there are some unnatural features that dictate the properties of the setting, but I'd rather not rely on it.
So basically this planet is very similar to our own, but ...
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Does My Planet Have to Have a Perpetual Sand Storm to Have a Blue Sun?
I’m creating an Earth-like world where the inhabitants and visitors to the planet see the planet’s sun as blue in color. I think that the best way to achieve this result is via atmospheric light ...
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Why won't Venusians just explode in our own atmosphere when they're not even wearing protective suits?
So "Venusians" are these Star Trek-y humanoid aliens that evolved on a planet with more than 75 times Earth's atmosphere. In a lot of ways this makes them not too dissimilar from deep sea ...
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Would this atmosphere be habitable to humans?
I have been creating a world, but I'm not sure if the atmosphere would be breathable for humans. (I'm kind of worried about the xenon levels)
The planet is made of
62% Nitrogen (N)
21% Oxygen (O2)
15....
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Methods of releasing nitrogen from martian regolith
One important step in the proposed terraforming Mars would be to give the planet a nitrogen atmosphere.
Now, most assume that nitrogen, (along with water and other luxuries of the sort) would have to ...
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Would it be possible to alter the chemical composition of a planet’s atmosphere for humans? [closed]
If my civilization (composed of humans who have extremely advanced technology such as portal engines (which can create traversable wormholes from one end) is terraforming worlds and creating colonies ...
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How would a future humanity "terraform" the moon?
Let's say, hypothetically (perhaps in the setting of a book series), Earth is temporarily destroyed. Antimatter weapons have been used in self-defense during a violent conflict. Now, thousands of ...
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