Questions tagged [habitability]
For questions asking about the conditions which are required for the development of life as we know it.
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How Big Can the Habitable Zone Be in a G-Type Binary System?
Here's the basic setup:
There is a binary solar system somewhere in an elliptical galaxy (said to be more suitable for habitability than spiral galaxies like our Milky Way.) The first star is a G-...
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168 views
Living on a planet years before a supernova
A planet is orbiting an old star that is on the verge of going supernova. The planet is colonized, so there's no need to worry about the habitability of the planet or evolution of life during the ...
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Habitable low mass super earth and its habitable high mass moon feasability
So, I've got a fantasy world where there is a super-earth with Earth-like gravity (aim is approximately half-again the diameter of Earth) that is the homeworld of non-native humans(introduced to the ...
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2answers
365 views
Is my binary planet realistic?
I had this idea for a terrestrial planet-ice giant binary system. Both planets had their origin inside the outer solar system but were moved into the habitable zone by a passers-by black hole.
The ...
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Life and Galactic Age: What galactic ages make a planet habitable?
How old does a galaxy need to be to harbor life for prolonged periods of time? Our galaxy was 8 or 9 billion years old by the time life emerged on Earth, so the lower boundary must be younger than ...
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Distance required for a Red Giant Star to have an apparent magnitude of -13
Assume this Red Giant has the properties of Aldebaran (α Tauri in constellation Taurus) with an absolute visual magnitude of −0.641M. How far would it have to be from Earth in order to possess an ...
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How could we (modern humans) colonize a hot planet?
Consider a planet similar to Mustafar (of the Star Wars franchise). Ambient temperatures and pressures are nearly 400 Celsius and 80 ATM. A surviving crew of normal humans is running out of resources ...
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1answer
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How could a rocky planet be tilted on it's side?
I want to experiment with a rocky planet that's tilted on its side like Uranus. But first I of course need some way for this to happen without destroying any chances of the planet being habitable. ...
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Plausible way to make it seem like the surface is uninhabitable?
In my world, right before WW3 went down, a few influential government members, well trained scientists and engineers built an impressive technologically advanced bunker for themselves to survive in.
...
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How do oceans in an O'Neill Cylinder replenish dissolved oxygen?
I am concerned that the centrifugal force will draw out all the dissolved gases from the ocean in a colossal O'Neill Cylinder in the same way blood centrifuges do in lab. Fishes and most marine life ...
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Could a world with a extremely bright night sky exist?
How could an Earth-like tidally locked planet with no Moon have a bright and livable night sky?
The bluish night sky should look like this:
But it should be 1% as bright as Earth's day sky and ...
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Earth loses its sun as is sent hurtling through space in darkness. How do humans survive for the next 1,000 years? [duplicate]
Let's say, whether for magical or scientific reasons, Earth and the moon are separated from their star, the Sun, and are sent hurtling through space.
Ignoring the reasons for such an event, how could ...
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What conditions to make this habitable moon plausible?
I'm trying to figure out how to make this gas giant moon habitable.
Here are the factors involved:
Moon is sub-temperate, mountainous with a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, with the planet being mainly ...
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2answers
182 views
Are these traits for my planet mathematically accurate? Could it support life?
Mass of star: 0.75 M☉
Radius of star: 0.69 R☉
Surface temperature of star: 4,620° K
Luminosity of star: 0.2 L☉
Satellites: 2
Place in solar system: 2nd
Mean radius: 8,725.1 km
Mass: 2.57 M⊕
Mean ...
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What new types of environments are possible on an intelligently designed habitat? [closed]
Humans have taken the stars and are capable of building pretty much anything they want(but the laws of physics are still the same), and a group of them decide they want to make a habitat with a ...
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How Would I Make an Oceanless World Feasible?
The planet I'm thinking of is of similar size and distance from its star relative to Earth, but it lacks oceans, instead consisting of one massive continent with a huge mountain range (reminiscent of ...
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2answers
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Feasibilty of binary planet having life
So far I've designed two planets, and would like for them to orbit each other at a distance of roughly 1.25 million km (both planets would easily stay in the habitable zone), the smaller being tidally ...
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Are Geologically Dead Planets Habitable?
One of the planets I'm thinking of for my book series has all of its landmass in the northernmost half of the northern hemisphere (it is thus mostly a water world) and is completely geologically dead. ...
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4answers
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How long could this wildlife habitat sustain itself?
In my story a group of characters will be sent to a space habitat which contains some of the deadliest alien creatures for a survival training mission.
The majority of the species will be carnivores ...
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2answers
148 views
How long to become a habitable planet
I am creating a world for Sci Fi story in which I am trying to have two non-tidally locked earth sized planets in a binary orbit around Alpha Centauri A. The only way I can think of this happening is ...
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1answer
38 views
Volcanic island generating its own storms
Picture this, a highly volcanic island sitting in the middle of a temperate or sub-arctic sea, the heat generated by the magma beneath the island and the volcano heats the air enough to generate a ...
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3answers
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Ways to increase temperature and still be habitable by humans
I am designing a planet that humans can live on for a few tens of thousands of years, while they are hiding from some sort of inter-galactic police force (or whatever). Therefore, it's important that ...
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1answer
286 views
In a Red Giant Binary System, How Far and How Wide Can the Habitable Zone Be?
Our estimates of our own habitable zone--a piece of space in which liquid water is possible--have varied over the years, but the current estimate is by Ramirez and Kaltenegger in 2017. Based on an ...
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Could bacteria survive on a star?
If the right requirements are met, could bacteria survive on the Sun?
The bacteria would spend most of their time in hibernation and reproducing, and when the time comes, they spread out on plasma ...
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0answers
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Alternative Ozone Layer [duplicate]
The reason for the high level of Oxygen in the atmosphere today is due to the billions of years worth of photosynthetic prokaryotes releasing it as a waste product. Of course, in the higher levels of ...
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The major effects on the habitability of exomoons orbiting this Brown Dwarf
I'll need to give some background to this question. I'm interested in the idea of a densely inhabited star system, and having large exomoons is one way that they can all orbit roughly at the same part ...
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Why would Earth be long-term unsuitable for an advanced alien species that's already colonized it?
I'm writing a story where aliens are using humanity like a botnet to do hyper complex calculations - each infested human has a program running in their subconscious brain that does a small part of the ...
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2answers
129 views
What kind of star will work for my system?
After what feels like forever and after asking several questions (like this, this and this), I believe I may have decided upon a suitable orbital system for my world:
$M_{S}=2.272\;571\;144\;5 \times ...
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3answers
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How could a fusion device be held at the centre of a ring-shaped space habitat?
I'm trying to create something like a generation ship, but it has no destination, and is travelling endlessly, so is more like a deep space non-orbital habitat for humans. One helpful and appealing ...
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4answers
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Basic concepts for a functioning generation ship [closed]
I'm writing a story (part of a larger work) which features a generation ship. I don't want to get too deep into the science, because it's not the focus of the story, but I'd like it not to be so ...
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5answers
420 views
What types of stars do not have a CHZ/Goldilocks zone?
Most stars have a continuously habitable zone (CHZ), but I'm specifically trying to think up ones that do not. Aside from pulsars and black dwarfs (theoretical, as the universe isn't old enough to ...
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4answers
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How big an area can we possibly make habitable on the moon?
This question focuses on an artificial atmosphere on the moon and the achieved amount being the limiting factor for the size of habitats.
I got a lot of beef for the suggestion to terraform the whole ...
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Would this setup of a terraformed moon hold up?
[Edits added in italic]
BACKGROUND
A few thousand years from now the moon has become one of many habitable places in the solar system. Economy, constant growing knowledge and human will made drastic ...
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1answer
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Could a planet be habitable due to illumination from the galactic core?
I recently saw this answers where it was suggested that the galactic core could illuminate a planet suffiently to make sure it is always summer on one side of the planet. This got me curious and after ...
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4answers
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Is it realistic to have a livable planet with a quarter the size of Earth, but with the same gravity?
So in theory, I would want this planet to have the same everything as earth besides the radius (and anything that affects how radius plays into gravity).
I know the density of this Planet X would have ...
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5answers
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Earth Has Four Seasons Lasting Years. Is This Too Much?
In this alternate Earth, the axial tilt is still leaning to the extent of the temperate and polar zones having four seasons--spring, summer, autumn and winter. The one key difference is that each ...
10
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2answers
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Algae using UV light from auroras for photosynthesis
I was reading some questions on Quora and I found this claim:
The polar regions have a very odd reason for them to have so much oxygen production. You see the Polar aurora run day and night in the ...
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3answers
207 views
Which Stars Would Best Suit For the Habitable Zone of The Nine Norse Earths?
In an alternate universe, the nine realms of Norse mythology--Midgard, Asgard, Vanaheimr, Jotunheimr, Alfheimr, Hel, Nidavellir, Niflheim and Museplheim--are actual, real-life "Earths", in the sense ...
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Rogue Planet Illuminated by Galactic Centre
The black hole question reminded me of an idea I wanted to implement at some point in a space campaign, but didn't go forward with because I was unsure whether it's merely statistically very ...
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2answers
299 views
Life around Cepheid Variable stars
Are there any unique challenges life would face evolving on a planet orbiting a Cepheid Variable star? I'm aware this is a broad question, so to narrow it down, consider this a question about Great ...
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4answers
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A planet illuminated by a black hole?
Is it possible for a planet to be heated and illuminated by a black hole due to Hawking radiation at the same intensity as by a star?
What mass and size should a black hole have to produce the same ...
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Keeping an “hot eyeball planet” wet
Consider such a tidally locked planet:
Many issues with tidally locked worlds have been discussed, but I'm not clear on how the water cycle for an otherwise Earth-like tidally locked world, would be ...
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In Search of a Super-Bright, Super-Stable Star
Long ago, I asked a question on how to make possible turning the nine realms of Norse mythology--Midgard, Asgard, Vanaheimr, Jotunheimr, Alfheimr, Hel, Nidavellir, Niflheim and Museplheim--into nine ...
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''Habitable'' planet close to a star
Imagine if you will a star comparable with our sun and a planet like earth orbiting at roughly the same distance around this star as our earth around the sun.
Would it be possible to place a planet ...
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What is the theoretical maximum number of habitable planets in one solar system?
In the DC comic book universe, the Vega System is a solar system around the star Vega (Alpha Lyrae), which is depicted as having dozens of habitable planets. While it seems to be an implausibly large ...
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If Janus and Epimetheus had moons
Imagine a planet with two moons that have an orbital pattern similar to that of Janus and Epimetheus of Saturn...
Is there a way for one of these moons to keep a stable pair of Trojan sub moons?
I'm ...
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4answers
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Intelligent life wiped out in a binary system with a neutron star?
For the purposes of my story, I have created the following setting.
An Earth-like planet orbits a binary star system made up of a Sun-like star and a neutron star. For the majority of time (hundreds ...
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3answers
421 views
Super earth habitability
I'm trying to build a super Earth that's capable of sustaining human life for space exploration in a way that's close to reality. So far I'm lacking some understanding of planetary science and human ...
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4answers
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Life on the Broken Ring - an issue of size
One of my ongoing projects is what I think of as the "constructed worlds gallery", a series of Megastructures as settings for stories and games, including things like the "Flying Pie-plate" a world ...
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2answers
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What would the consequences be of a high number of solar systems being within close proximity to one another?
What would the consequences be of a high number of solar systems being within close proximity to one another? I'm mainly interested in the consequences for life on multiple planets. When I say 'close ...
