Questions tagged [solar-system]
For questions regarding a star and the area comprising its gravitational dominance. While they are not part of its technical definition, it colloquially refers to the planets, moons, asteroids and other bodies orbiting the star.
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What happens if the sun disappears and then reappears some days later?
In the Norse prophesy of Ragnarok, Fenrir eats the sun. Considering the Earth is not immediately consumed by a supernova, it must be assumed that he swallows it whole and it just ceases to exist on ...
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How would Earth-Mars trade work with a Musk-like colony?
Let's take a world that is based heavily on Elon Musk's specific ideas of Mars colonization, to whit:
Launch technology from Earth evolves to be to <$100/lb cost to launch ratio, due to reusable ...
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Could a planet be at the center of the universe, yet still have a sun?
In the past we humans thought that our planet was the center of the universe and everything revolved around us, due to science/math/astronomy and any other means we now believe that to not be true.
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What could make a star green?
Stars are never green.
When a star's spectra "peaks" in the green range, it also releases a significant number of waves of the adjacent colors - so "green" stars appear yellow or ...
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Where in the solar system is the most viable place to put my colonists, after Mars and Luna?
Mars and Earth's moon already feature in a lot of fiction about space colonization. After these two planets, and assuming that other solar systems are too far away, what is the best place within this ...
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What are the possibilities of a dwarf planet orbiting opposite Earth's orbit?
I am drafting a short story about a small object orbiting the Sun at the precise 'speed' as Earth's opposite the Sun, undiscovered by us due to its position. The problems I see with this include the ...
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How would a Martian colony be able to celebrate Christmas?
Accept that we had a reason to go to Mars, managed to build a colony there, and what we found on Mars is valuable enough to ship back to Earth. There is now a self sustainable colony living under the ...
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Impacts of a stellar Jupiter
In the book 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke, Jupiter is turned into a star. Presumably this is done by making it more dense, so if Jupiter were to reach that density and become a star, what ...
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Can a planet have a day that's always longer than night?
This question has been rewritten to incorporate all clarifications.
On Earth, half the planet is illuminated at any time (let's ignore eclipses). Axial tilt lets day lengths vary, but over the course ...
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How would the sudden destruction of Earth affect other planets within the Solar System?
Earth is destroyed in explosive fashion by an unknown force. How does this affect the rest of the Solar System? Does sudden absence of that mass affect the orbits of the other planets at all? Let's ...
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What would be the first thing humans would mine on Jupiter?
Jupiter is a terrible place to be, but for a number of artistic reasons, I'd like to have my story take place there and only there. "Mining", or resource extraction by any other name, is the usual ...
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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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A Larger Venus in Our Solar System [closed]
Related to If Mars Were a Superearth
In terms of diameter and mass, Venus is one step close to identical to Earth.
But in this scenario, Venus is actually the size of the one exoplanet that ...
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Could two planets follow the same orbit and never "see" each other?
Imagine two identical planets planet A and planet B, orbiting the same star.
Is it possible that these two planets follow the exact same "route" as they orbit their sun, but are just distant enough ...
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How would an advanced civilization have constant communication between planets?
In this universe humans have advanced far enough to be able to colonize planets in our system but not enough to do interstellar travel. Earth is united and they have moved beyond countries and borders....
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How To Make an Earth with 27 Suns Work, Attempt Two: Orbital Stability
This is the continuation of a thread of related posts on a hypothetical alternate universe/Light Plane.
Other posts from this thread are here:
How To Make an Earth with 27 Suns Work
Radiation Levels ...
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How Many Planets Can Safely Share A Single Orbit?
Bryan Konietzko (you know, one of the guys being Avatar The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra), is working on a new project called Threadworlds, which takes place in a solar system that has 5 ...
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Why might a valued mineral be only found on one planet?
According to an answer to a previous question, it would be comparatively impractical to conduct mining on a rocky planet when there are moons, asteroids, comets, etc. that have smaller mass, so much ...
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How do you non-catastrophically reduce the mass of the Sun by half?
In my previous question, I asked how much mass the Sun would have to lose in order for Saturn's orbital velocity to be its escape velocity.
The answer proved to be somewhat unexpected - when the Sun ...
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What are the main problems with beaming light from the Sun to Saturn?
I recently finished reading the Kim Stanley Robinson novel 2312 - set, of course, in the year 2312. Part of the background to the political negotiations and ongoing terraforming in the outer Solar ...
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Starbuilding: What is lacking in the logic behind Cosmos 2 star system generation algorithm?
Preamble
The Alternity Cosmos II is a complement to a dice role-playing game that uses heuristics based on hard-science to 'build' plausible star systems for the Alternity game:
http://www....
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How do date/time systems work for an entire solar system?
The species doesn't originate from the solar system, nor do they occupy a single planet or even have any colonies on the planets. They travel around in space ships throughout the solar system
Do they ...
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What trade goods would spacers be able to offer Earthlings?
Background
Moonshot entrepreneur Elon Branson funds a migration to space. Instead of spending billions of developing safe space technology, he instead finds volunteers and shoots them in to space ...
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Possibility of a civilization on (or around) Planet Nine
Could there be life on or around Planet Nine (a real-world planet in our Solar System, which has recently been discovered through indirect methods)? Of course, it probably receives nearly no solar ...
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The Earth and Moon resolidify under a bluer star, their outer layers evaporated and burned away. What do they look like now?
(This is the third in a series of questions, starting with Moved into further orbits to protect them, how much damage do Earth and Moon take when the Sun expands? and How soon does the Earth's ...
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Do stars in a binary star system fall along the ecliptic?
I am wondering about Tatooine, and was reading about binary systems here, which provided a lot of good basic food for thought. My specific question is not addressed at that link, and so I pose it here....
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Creating "Sunfall" on the moon of a gas giant
I'm attempting to figure out the orbital physics of a system that has a habitable body that has intense periods of waxing and waning sunlight. I've come to the assumption that the best body for this ...
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Moved into further orbits to protect them, how much damage do Earth and Moon take when the Sun expands?
Short version A far future catastrophe burns/melts away large chunks of the Earth and Moon. For reasons related to my story's fantasy elements, the remains of the Moon have about one fifth their ...
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How This Alternate Solar System Influences the Milankovitch Cycle
I have just found out that the Milankovitch Cycle, a machination responsible for the creation of the Pleistocene ice ages, has its part played partly by orbit from the entire solar system. As a ...
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A weapon to attack the Solar System
Basis
We are in the universe we call our own, on the planet we call Earth, in the physics-set and known reality we assume. There is no flat-out "magic" or other things along those lines, so ...
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The view in a binary star system
I am writing a book where there is a binary system with a red and blue star. There is planet with the same properties as earth orbiting in a habitable zone around the 2 stars.
The question
How ...
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How many planets should I have in my planetary system? [closed]
I am building a planetary system, but I always thought how many planets should I have in this system. When you look at our solar system there are 8 planets. Other exoplanetary systems can have up to ...
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What kind of lunar orbit would cause a total solar eclipse to happen once a day?
The eclipse needs to be visible from at least one region on the planet every revelation and last about one hour.
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How would a binary star system with a planet with 2 moons work? If possible
I am creating a solar system that has a binary star system. The system has 3 planets. The closest being like Mercury. The next being the planet that supports life and being slightly larger then earth....
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How could a planet have a sky without stars at night?
Is it possible for a planet in our part of the galaxy to have a night without stars?
I'm looking for some kind of natural phenomena that would hide the stars, but allow the sun to rise and fall as ...
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Initial conditions for a fluorine hellscape
I'm curious what it would take to get a planet with so much free fluorine that you can have an atmosphere of predominantly or purely fluorine. I realize how improbable a planet like this is, so I'm ...
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How would interplanetary stock-exchanges work?
Today, a major company gets itself listed on stock exchanges so that people can buy a portion of the company while it can raise money. While the distances and time lags involved aren't much of a ...
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Blind spot in the Solar System
An alien spaceship the size of an Empire State Building experiences a technical issues with its cloaking device, their duty technician needs 24 hours to repair and meanwhile the alien wants to avoid ...
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How difficult would it be to turn the Asteroid Belt into a single body? What's the best method?
The Emperor (may he live forever) plans to visit the Solar System on a rare royal visit in ten years' time. The Bureau for Interplanetary Tidying have decided that the Asteroid Belt is an eyesore that ...
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Hiding a solar system in a nebula
I have a planetary system with a yellow dwarf similar to our own Sun and three habitable planets. I want to hide this system from sight and long range scans in a nebula, a giant cloud of dust and gas ...
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Radiation Levels and Effects on Planet with 27 Suns
Other posts from this thread will be posted here:
How to make an Earth with 27 suns work (Closed as a duplicate of the follow up, Attempt Two)
How To Make an Earth with 27 Suns Work, Attempt Two: ...
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Is there a habitability zone between the primary and secondary stars of a binary star system?
Is there a habitability zone between the primary and secondary stars in a binary star system for a planet orbiting only the primary star at a distance less than that of the secondary star and, if so, ...
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Solar recycling or: How to keep your star from dying
I was in the shower the other day thinking about the sun going Nova, you know...like you do, and a thought occurred to me:
Could you turn the sun into a stable, mostly closed system?
Some details ...
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Can two stars orbit each other but each have their own planets in stable orbits?
I'm aware that 'tatooine' worlds don't make good habits for planets, normally. From what I've read, either a planet has to orbit one star really closely, or orbit both stars from a really long ...
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How close could another solar system be without adversely affecting our own?
I would like to know how close two planetary systems could be without having an adverse effect on each other. My goal is to drastically improve the chances of having habitable planets near enough that ...
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How big a population can the solar system support considering only power and living space?
The average power utilization per person is 1 Megawatt.
The average living space is 1000 cubic meters per person.
The average total mass in use by a person is 1000 tons.
Assumptions
Solar power ...
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Stable ringworld interactivity with other solar system objects
I thought of two questions regarding ringworld structures in solar systems with results I can't assume, so I will try to describe each (assume stability):
If a (toroidal) ringworld were massive ...
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How can an Earth-like moon meet these angular diameter conditions?
NOTE: If there is anything about this question that needs clarification or editing, please don't hesitate to let me know in the comments.
Get ready, because you're in for quite a ride.
I have tried ...
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Permanent Full moon via "Magic"
The Problem
I had in mind giving my world a permanent full moon for a long time. Though I generally ran into 2 problems along the way.
Firstly I wanted of course to make it appear as if it was always ...
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What could make a star violet?
Part of a series I'm starting since the recent What could make a star green? did quite well and others could use the information here in their worlds.
There aren't any "violet" stars.
When a star ...
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