Questions tagged [hard-science]
REVIEW THE WIKI BEFORE USING THIS TAG! For questions that require unequivocal proof that answers are correct through the use of equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, etc. Compare to: science-fiction, science-based and internal-consistency. This tag may not be used alone. This tag may not be used with the science-fiction, science-based, or internal-consistency tags. Flag your question for moderator attention once posted.
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On Habitable Moon Systems
Context
I was working on a habitable gas giant moon, but I came across an issue in that, at the acceptable distances from its parent planet (10-20 planetary Radii, according to an Artefexian video on ...
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If you Broke Mars' Perclorates and Benzenes How Much of an Atmosphere Would this Create?
Much of Mars is inimical to human life. While there are many problems I would like to focus on three:
The low density atmosphere does not provide the pressure needed to
sustain humans outside of a ...
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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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How would researchers on an alien planet be able to support their dietary requirements?
A group of scientists travels to a newly discovered planet shown to support life in the form of plants and animals. Obviously they can only bring so much food with them so at some point they would ...
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If money were no object, is there an element or alloy that would make for better train tracks than common steel?
A question that arose from here.
Say we have a planet with a different percentage of various elements than Earth, but steam train technology, and we were striving for train track longevity. Is there ...
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How could my organism lose most of its water?
I'm writing a short hard-science story about an organism that loses most of its water much like tardigrades before entering dormancy but this organism is the size of a cat, how could I explain this ...
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How much difference would Alpha Centauri A cause to the climate of a planet about Alpha Centauri B?
Imagine an earthlike planet in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri B. Call it ACBc (although I am not sure ACBb has been confirmed). When ACA and ACB are closest to one another, they are about 11 AU ...
- 1,017
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Solar Flare/CME Range Limits
The Setting:
A binary solar system comprised of a KV-class Orange Dwarf, and an M-Class Red Dwarf which orbits roughly 600AU away. The Orange Dwarf has 4 planets orbiting around it, including one ...
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How to calculate the expected rotational speed of a star
I am working on fictional stars, and I want to have as many points about them as I can, and most things I found relatively easy, except for rotational speed.
I am not sure exactly how to find at what ...
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Do Forbidden Lines in Stars Often Come in Groups
In previous questions, I asked about how a K2V star could develop an [O VII] forbidden line and how those x-rays would create "pseudo-aurorae". Now, I'd like to know if my star could ...
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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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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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How could a K star develop an [O VII] Forbidden Line at 22.1 Å
The Goal
I have been designing a planet for quite a while now, and I would like the star to have an [O VII] forbidden line in its atmosphere. There doesn't need to be too much, but I need enough for ...
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How do human girls who are sterilised at age 9 develop as they mature?
On the world of Ruquelis, there are three genders, men, women, and lilim who are a female sex, with wings and clawed feet. Because of the genetics of this situation, lilim are less fertile and can ...
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Amount of antimatter needed to propel large spacecraft?
Okay, So i'm not really into physics or mathematics but i'm trying my best to learn some bit of how the calculations needed for the amount of antimatter needed to propel a spacecrafft to relativistic ...
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Exomoon Color as Viewed from Planet It Orbits
I have been designing a planet and it has one moon that is slightly smaller than ours. Just like how mars appears red and its dust is red, I realized that maybe if I altered the composition of my moon,...
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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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Ammonia transporting blood
Okay essentially I am designing an alien ecosystem with an ammonia and methane based metabolism. Here's the formula for the metabolism animal analogs use on this planet:
$$\ce{3CH2O + 4NH3 -> 3CH4 +...
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How deep underwater can red photosynthesis work?
The Setting:
I have a binary star system.
First star: K5.2V class Orange Dwarf, 60% the mass of Sol, 17% luminosity of Sol, and at 4.5 billion years old. This star is the only one with a planetary ...
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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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Partially tidally locked planed due to elliptical orbit... Possible?
Would it be possible for a planet with an elliptical orbit to be tidally locked to a star, only for a certain part of it's orbit?
If this is possible, then:
could the tidally locked side vary from ...
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Would lenses work in a universe with four spatial dimensions?
Let us assume that we have a universe with four spatial dimensions rather than the three of our universe, in which matter can exist that is a four-dimensional analogue of three-dimensional matter.
...
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Zero energy transfer between Earth and Moon with space elevators
I'm asking this out of curiosity, mostly as a response to Space elevator from Earth to Moon with multiple temporary anchors and some of the comments and answers there.
Suppose you're able to build ...
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Trinary star system - Tidal locked planet [closed]
I'm trying to build a world where an earth-like planet is tidal locked to a sun in a three star system, where the other two would orbit each other in the center (being the central mass of the system). ...
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What kind of scanner can detect a hidden chip in someone's body?
So it's the lead-up to what might be World War III and the enemy is kidnapping and implanting mind-control chips into our people, one by one, to turn them into sleeper agents, to all attack en masse ...
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How small can a nuclear weapon get?
Context
I am writing the section following a critical space battle where a rogue UNN Pearl of the Stars is taken down, and its CIC, reactor and, most importantly, its payload of 4 planet buster 15-...
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How large should my supermassive planet's core be to prevent it from becoming a star?
My planet is a gas giant, it is called Klarloth (Inspired by a character from "Star Mouse" by Fredric Brown).
Klarloth is a strange planet. For one thing, the planet is large in size, more ...
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How many different mines and extraction industries would a colony need in order to be able to produce equipment similar to what we have now?
Help me, you benevolent geology nerd!
This is a question I'm trying to find a workable (but not necessarily precise) answer for a colony-building sci-fi RPG game that I am GMing for some of my friends....
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Calculating the total thermal energy contained within an object [closed]
A character in my world has a superpower that allows them to convert all (or at least 99.99...%) of the thermal energy contained by the particles within a volume into directed kinetic energy, causing ...
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How could a remote controlled bacterium work?
How could a radiowave controlled remote-controlled bacterium be possible?
Criteria:
The receiver for the radiowaves would not be bigger than the bacterium (which is the size of a cyanobacterium)
The ...
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How the sky will change with stratospheric aerosol injections?
The world I am designing has successfully survived the event of the almost complete depletion of natural oil reserves. By "successfully" I mean that cities are densely populated, the stock ...
- 1,148
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Do the mountains formed by a divergent boundary form on either coast of the resulting channel, or on the part that has not yet separated?
The lakes and the bay are formed by the rift where the right chunk is diverging away from the main plate. I've put mountains on the land part of the rift a la Ethiopia's Great Rift Valley, but should ...
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Physics feasibility of a light-gas driven rifle cartridge? Diagram example included
The idea would be a typical rifle cartridge with a case and propellant but with a gas section placed between the case and propellant and bullet with a soft metal disc that would be driven by the ...
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Is a universe with a very low speed of light possible? [closed]
In my universe, the speed of light is measured at 5m/s. Now, these aren't meters as we know them, since if all it was is just to change $c$, then the scale of everything else would change with it, and ...
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How does one accurately deduce scale from any given fantasy map (to the best one can)?
Sometimes, a person might wish to know the touch scale of a map, whether made by another person or you, in order to better understand the world a story is taking place. How might one go about deducing ...
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Would a weapon made of a piezoelectric material be able to notably shock an opponent?
In my world, people are able to use magic to produce piezoelectric materials of a high strength, making it a viable material for use in weapons and armour. For the purpose of this question you can ...
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How close can two planets be within the habitable zone?
I am aware that similar questions have been asked but these variables are different. I have tried to calculate it myself or at least find an equation that could help find the forbidden zones for these ...
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How to calculate the density contribution of each of Earths layers
I'm trying to calculate the density of planets a bit more precise, than just treating it like an object of uniform density.
In order to do so, I went with Earth, as my convenient sample planet. Earth ...
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How much diamagnetic levitation can a human handle?
One of the limitations to human space travel is acceleration limits. We'd really like to just shoot spaceships out of a cannon to 99% the speed of light, but the resulting pressures on the human body ...
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On the tidal heating of a moon. What is the second Love number?
Years ago it was asked here how to calculate the tidal heating of a moon orbiting another body with a simple equation. The answer is very detailed. They explain the equation, its shortcomings, the ...
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Is there a NON-CHEMICAL weapon that can target the central nervous and/or muscular system?
There is research on nerve agents and gases, but are there any man-portable weapons that may be able to harm the CNS without gas? Thanks.
AMENDED: Results in symptoms like shaking, tremors that are ...
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How old must The Moon be?
Some time ago, aliens placed the Moon around Earth with every intent to deceive us about its authenticity, except for the glaring synchronization that allows for total solar eclipses, as something ...
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What is the climate of an otherwise ocean planet with a huge landmass along the equator? [closed]
I am coming up with a new planet idea inspired by One Piece. I'm imagining a planet with the same mass, volume, and sunshine as Earth. The difference is that it is mainly an ocean planet. There are no ...
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Can you use plants as substitute for missing metals/elements?
Say a person stranded in time, somewhere in a forest wants to make brass.
He has copper, but not zinc, so he tosses a bunch of zinc-rich beans and nuts in the smelting pot with copper and prays to god ...
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Gravity-powered cannonballs for mountain dwellers
My mountain dwellers have endless patience. They spend their spare time fashioning spherical rock cannonballs of approximately equal size. This is in case of attack by enemies. Around their mountain ...
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Could a desert animal recycle ammonia into protein to avoid urinating?
Could a desert animal, with the right symbiotic microbes, avert the need to urinate by creating ammonia and having bacteria in its blood/kidneys convert it into nitrate and then back into amino acids? ...
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How much lift would this multi-winged flying ship generate at 100 kph?
I would ask on aviation, but since this is a hypothetical aircraft, it isn't allowed there.
Context:
In this alternate history dieselpunk world there are the military branch of the "aeronavy&...
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What color should my planet's skies be?
Assuming the skies are clear of suspended particles, what color should they be at mid-day if viewed with human eyes?
The planet is larger and twice as massive as Earth, with a nearly identical ...
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Spaceship habitat size
I need a spaceship habitat for a million humans, comfortably, for indefinite time.
I have read many questions around here, perfectly answered, about the size a spaceship should be to store enough ...
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Does this alternate Universe with easier-to-understand physics behave the same as ours?
I realize the following question is non-trivial, but I would greatly appreciate any all help.
I'm interested in creating a SciFi story that takes place in an alternate universe I'm calling Universe X. ...
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