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2 answers
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Is "quasi planet" habitable for life?

I was imaging a system which has a black hole, a star and Earth like planet. The star and planet orbits around the black hole, but the planet has same orbital period as the star, which is a "quasi ...
Gstestso's user avatar
  • 2,227
21 votes
3 answers
4k views

Reality Check: Habitable moon around earth-like planet

For a complex world-building scenario I want a habitable moon orbiting a habitable earth-like planet. The habitable moon should allow for flora, fauna and landscape as similar to earth as possible. ...
DerGreif's user avatar
  • 591
12 votes
3 answers
2k views

Smallest planet that can maintain plate tectonics?

I was wondering what is the smallest a terrestrial planet can be and maintain plate tectonics and generate a magnetic field, atleast to Earth's current age?
Stephanie's user avatar
  • 2,319
2 votes
0 answers
158 views

Can a gas giant form in the Goldilocks zone and have habitable moons. And if it can how many of those moons could be habitable? [duplicate]

Humanity is about to leave our solar system for some reason and a gas giant with 60 moons has been spotted in the Goldilocks zone of a nearby solar system. They arrive there and it turns out, a space-...
user avatar
12 votes
3 answers
1k views

Is it possible for life to exist on the core of a gas planet?

I was thinking of writing a story and had the idea of having a society exist on the core of a gas planet. The core would be similar to earth with a breathable atmosphere similar to ours above it but ...
user avatar
8 votes
4 answers
590 views

Can this unique planet be colonized?

In the story I'm writing, a gas dwarf (named Eden) is discovered in a triple star system. Its atmosphere is mainly oxygen and water based, and its gravity is slightly higher than Earth's. Unlike our ...
Mattias's user avatar
  • 1,430
6 votes
1 answer
508 views

Could an impact crater make a world habitable?

For most of us, meteors are by far the ultimate planet killers. All it takes is one direct hit to suddenly wipe all life from the face of a world. But, rather than taking life away from a planet, what ...
Mattias's user avatar
  • 1,430
6 votes
4 answers
920 views

Possibility of a terrestrial moon orbiting a Jovian planet for the setting of a fantasy world

I am currently creating a world for a series of fantasy short stories (and hopefully movies one day), and I need some help with the science. Ideally, I would like the story to take place on a moon ...
Josiah.murphy's user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
667 views

Is this planet possible in real life?

In the Halo series there's a habitable planet called Harvest with a diameter of 4,012 kilometres, and gravity 99% of Earth's, though the planet only has 9% of Earth's mass. If such a planet is ...
Stephanie's user avatar
  • 2,319
12 votes
6 answers
3k views

Can a planet without one or more moons be habitable?

My titled question was, can a planet without one or more moons be habitable? In more depth, how would that planet be affected overall, without the moon to affect the tides and without providing light ...
Split91's user avatar
  • 185
15 votes
2 answers
1k views

How far could a planet be from its star and still be kept habitable by intense greenhouse gases?

Epimetheus is a planet with about three times the mass of Earth orbiting a sun-like star in the Andromeda galaxy. However, two major factors separate Epimetheus from Earth. First, it has a thick ...
ckersch's user avatar
  • 46.5k
2 votes
2 answers
468 views

Minimum distance a planet can remain habitable from a sun-like star?

This one source is stating a desert planet the size of Earth could maintain habitability at 0.38 AU from a sun-like star, but I highly doubt this is possible. What are some factors that could make ...
Stephanie's user avatar
  • 2,319
1 vote
1 answer
450 views

What is the maximum distance a planet orbiting the sun could have liquid water on its surface?

Lets say there's a super earth orbiting the sun at 3.00 AU, how thick would its atmosphere have to be to trap enough heat to make the planet warm enough for liquid water to flow on its surface?
Stephanie's user avatar
  • 2,319
10 votes
3 answers
422 views

What would the effects be of two tidal locked planets have on each other's geography?

I've heard a lot of people say that having two tidally locked planets close together would have adverse affects on both planets. I have two tidally locked planets at a distance of 16,550 miles apart. ...
Xandar The Zenon's user avatar
11 votes
6 answers
2k views

How to make a rogue planet liveable?

Rogue planets are generally not to healthy for us humans to live on. No permanent source of heat or light means that generally they are a pretty cold place. Plenty of other problems arise too, but ...
Quiquȅ's user avatar
  • 3,317
7 votes
2 answers
1k views

What Is The Minimum Size Of A Planet To Harbor Human Life?

What is the minimum size of a planet that could harbor human life? You get to decide what the atmosphere is, but I'm reasonably sure that O2, CO2, and H2O are necessary components of the atmosphere. ...
Xandar The Zenon's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
388 views

Is it in any way possible to make a habitable (or colonize-able) corkscrew planet?

Is there any way to make a planet with a corkscrew orbit (like this) that could host a sci-fi civilisation? It'd be amazing if there was a way to make life arise naturally, but colonize-able works ...
Christopher Parnis's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
296 views

How much time would it take Mars to cool enough to be habitable by humans after a gigantic planetary impact?

Let's say humankind terraforms Mars aggressively, increasing the planet's mass (and gravity) to Earth-like levels and causes its core to produce a significant magnetosphere. For example, perhaps they ...
João Pedro Bernardo's user avatar
24 votes
6 answers
2k views

Close the door on your way out - Life lit by a blue dwarf star

I'm seeking a hard science setting for a piece of xenofiction with a decidedly non-sciencey feel. That said, there is no magic or magic technology. The idea is as follows: A red dwarf star has a ...
rumguff's user avatar
  • 4,198
3 votes
1 answer
126 views

Would vegetation-like decorations help to alleviate homesickness on a Lunar or Mars colony?

The sterile and unchanging landscape of the Martian global desert could become tiresome for any Martian colonialist. Terraforming has been proposed but seems undoable for a long time to come. So what ...
LocalFluff's user avatar
11 votes
3 answers
716 views

Habitability of an icy volcano planet

Suppose we have a rocky planet (somewhere between Earth- and Super-Earth- sized) orbiting a star far enough away that it would be around Pluto's temperature if sunlight was the only heat source. If we ...
Joshua Snider's user avatar
4 votes
5 answers
801 views

Can a planet with 2/3 Orbital eccentricity sustain life?

On a planet where it is Earth-like, the orbit around the sun is a bit longer than 1 Earth year, and the orbit is on 2/3 eccentricity, but where only the "2" part is inside the Goldilocks zone. In ...
Magic-Mouse's user avatar
  • 5,692
22 votes
3 answers
3k views

Making a planet habitable for humanoids: The planet

The question: What characteristics are necessary for a planet to be habitable for humans? What should the generic star and planet be like? The life forms are human, so they Need to have access to ...
HDE 226868's user avatar
  • 102k
19 votes
4 answers
6k views

How small could an Earth-like planet be while still realistically being able to sustain human life?

I'm thinking a planet orbiting a nearby star colonized by human settlers sometime in the not near, but not too distant future. How small could a planet be while still standing in as a relatively ...
akaddoura's user avatar
  • 413
19 votes
1 answer
2k views

Making a planet habitable for humanoids: The star

The question: What characteristics are necessary for a planet to be habitable for humans? What should the generic star and planet be like? The life forms are human, so they Need to have access to ...
HDE 226868's user avatar
  • 102k
41 votes
3 answers
13k views

Habitable moon of a gas giant: working out the sizes and distances

I am attempting to create fictional, stable P-Type binary system, featuring a gas giant in a stable orbit, with a habitable Earth-like moon. “Is a Jupiter-sized planet plausible in a habitable zone?” ...
platypus-rising's user avatar
25 votes
4 answers
7k views

Can a gas giant have its own habitable zone?

Gas giants can generate heat via the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism. It's oft-repeated that Jupiter actually generates more heat internally via this method than it receives from the Sun. Scale this ...
Alex Celeste's user avatar
  • 2,205
14 votes
4 answers
4k views

Is it possible that a gas giant of similar size to Jupiter could harbor life?

Say we had a planet which was a gas giant. Is it possible that at the core of the planet where meteors, asteroids, and comet debris had collected that there could be a layer of atmosphere similar to ...
Kcronix's user avatar
  • 612
21 votes
4 answers
5k views

Is a Jupiter-sized planet plausible in a habitable zone?

We lived through loads of questions regarding aquatic races, so buckle up, I am going to gather some ideas around insectoids. The homeworld and race This race lives on a planet which has lower ...
Pavel Janicek's user avatar

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