Questions tagged [terraforming]
For questions about the process of turning a barren space (such as a planet, moon, or asteroid) into a habitable one.
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Could we give Mars Earth-like gravity using dark energy? [closed]
In the far future, humans are struggling with the idea of whether or not to use dark energy's repulsive-gravity capabilities to surround Mars in a sphere of it (regardless of how, let's assume they ...
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2answers
122 views
What are the logistics of wiping out the current world to the point a “new” generation of humans would not be able to find it? [closed]
Backstory
I have a race of biologically advanced aliens that develop by fighting, adapting, and growing immune to the current highest standards of technology a species has to offer. By doing this they'...
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3answers
174 views
What would increasing the gravity of a moon do to its planet?
If I terraformed a moon to have enough artificial gravity/atmosphere to support life, would they end up just crashing into each other? Is there a way to not have this happen, e.g., increasing distance ...
5
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2answers
185 views
Atmosphere of a terraformed 10 km planetoid with Earth gravity
Bernal spheres and other O'Neill cylinders are complicated, maintenance-high and fragile beasts. Someone started to make micro-black-holes and put them in asteroids, in order to have 1 to 10+km rock ...
8
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3answers
300 views
I want to build a flat Earth, for real
A planet recently discovered was explored and proved unworthy of terraforming: It is mostly made of carbonaceous minerals, classifying it as a carbon planet. However, one of the explorers does not see ...
3
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2answers
168 views
Terraformed Venus and Mars
A Traveler from a very advanced civilization has visited the Solar system. He found the humans likable, and decided to leave them a boon. For some reason, he couldn't do anything directly to the Earth ...
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5answers
307 views
Terraforming via rapidly growing organisms, is it a good idea?
Terraforming and maintaining a biosphere suitable for humans is tough, but no worries, Protogon is here! Collaborating with Providence, our scientists have created Hygiea, a series of rapidly growing ...
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4answers
310 views
The Galaxy has been colonised but why the big feet?
Far, far into the future, pretty much the entire Milky Way has been colonised by humans. The thing is that now the Empire has fallen, the technology of FTL travel has been lost in most places. Those ...
7
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4answers
563 views
Putting oxygen on the Moon - the easy way
It would be nice if there were an atmosphere on the Moon with oxygen; in fact it could be just oxygen at 1/5 the Earth's pressure. People could live there. Now of course given the Moon's lower gravity ...
12
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5answers
357 views
Fastest way to oxygenate Venus
Scientists recently discovered a propellantless drive capable of completely negating gravity with low energy inputs! Huzzah! Sadly the Earth is going to be destroyed soon by a rogue handwave. Looking ...
6
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1answer
191 views
How long would an array of mass drivers take to terraform Mars by transporting CO2 from Venus?
So I've always assumed Mars never had enough available CO2 on-site for terraforming, something that new research seems to have confirmed.
But my ideas have always relied on getting CO2 from alternate ...
13
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3answers
2k views
Gravitational anomaly (Mascons) creating water-hills
A scenario in the far future -- The moon has been successfully terraformed. All problems have been worked-out, from flinging volatiles into collision course with the moon, up to creating and retaining ...
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5answers
523 views
How would we terraform the moon?
How could we and would we terra-form the moon? I mean, theoretically speaking it should be possible and not too much of a challenge. But i don't know a lot of things, so i'm just not sure.
I came up ...
6
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6answers
446 views
Greenhouse Planet Terraforming - Will a balloon jacket self-stabilise?
Most of what follows is scientifically dubious. I'm looking to clarify one aspect and one aspect alone.
A small planet is being terraformed by an alien race who have been doing this for millennia. ...
0
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3answers
150 views
Giant Terraforming [closed]
In my story, a planet colonizing business goes to a very unlikely part of space to have a good planet in the goldilocks zone. When they out of pure luck, scan a planet almost exactly like earth. They ...
3
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6answers
210 views
Can I have a glacier on a tidally-locked shallow-sea planet?
I have a planet that is tidally locked to its sun.
The ocean is shallow (a few hundred meters) and was artificially created in the past by harvesting the system's Oort cloud or outer-system ice ...
1
vote
1answer
103 views
What kind of impact could strip Venus and make it spin faster?
I'm trying to create plausible scenario under which we could colonize Venus.
Is it possible that Venus could be hit by a planetoid and the impact strips its atmosphere and makes it spin faster?
I'm ...
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1answer
136 views
How much material would be required to build a giant sun shade to cool down Venus? [closed]
One way to terraform Venus would be to create a massive sun shade enveloping the planet. How much actual material would be required for this? And where would you get it from?
3
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1answer
99 views
Terraformed planet orbiting a blue star
A planet was terraformed in humanity's distant past by technologically superior beings. The planet is very similar to Earth. I understand blue stars are highly radioactive and thus don't have real ...
2
votes
2answers
516 views
How long could an ecosystem survive without sunlight?
I am designing a terraformed Venus, where the planet has been given an Earth-like atmosphere but keeps it's original rotation rate. Colonists are importing Earth life to Venus to add a biosphere to ...
6
votes
3answers
124 views
Effects of comet/asteroid bombardment on planet temperature
I have not had much success finding out what the effects of bombarding a planet with comets or asteroids could have on the temperature of that planet.
I expect it would add some heat, and I ...
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votes
2answers
275 views
Terraforming Ganymede, is it possible?
The Hegemony has long looked upon Ganymede as a prime terraforming project for humanity.
The Hegemony has the tech for large scale space production so large mirrors or sun shades are able to be built ...
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1answer
140 views
How to move up to one million Earth-mass planets? [closed]
Inspired by The One Million Earth Solar System.
A civilization wants to create a solar system with a lot of earth-sized planets. How would they go about building it? Specifically, how would they move ...
2
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2answers
84 views
Looking for ideas for a world that requires some earth based mineral to be released into its atmosphere to render it non toxic to life as we know it,
Im busy wrtiting a Space Opera and was going to utilise the "hypothesis", or whatever you call it of an ancient civ mining gold here and utilising it to disperse into its atmosphere, in turn either ...
6
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4answers
1k views
Is there any way to Terraform Ceres?
In the "Warlords" Universe Ceres is the diplomatic and economic hub of the asteroid belt dominated by the rule of the 'Governor' and the 'Intercessor' (The Speaker for the Hegemon herself).
Now I'm ...
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2answers
499 views
How long would it take to colonize the galaxy with FTL? How long before colonization space is at a premium? [closed]
It's easy to find search results for how long it would take without FTL - but I'm wondering how long it would take with FTL, and there don't seem to be many estimates for that. Some very rough ...
5
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4answers
389 views
What are the advantages of terraforming over living in space stations/constructs and visa versa? [duplicate]
It seems to me that the focus on colonizing other planets [edit: using closed/airtight structures] is misguided, and that building space stations with permanent populations would be easier, and would ...
5
votes
3answers
131 views
Solutions for sustainable living in reduced gravity environment
I am building an idea for a terraformed environment with 1/6 the gravity of Earth, with a permanent human colony that has been established and sustained for 40+ years. I have thrown around a few ideas ...
2
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3answers
79 views
Proxima Centauri's flare: effects on a terraformed planet
Imagine that, in a thousand years, the star system of Proxima centauri has a planet located in its goldilocks zone that has been terraformed by earthling settlers.
We do not really know what the ...
2
votes
3answers
118 views
If an advanced alien civilization wanted to jumpstart evolution on a planet, what chemicals would they need to release in a planets atmosphere? [closed]
Say we have an advanced alien civilization with advanced technology. They encounter a planet teeming with early life (microbes). They want to speed up evolution on the planet and have sentient and non-...
2
votes
1answer
62 views
Interacting with a separately evolved planetary life system [closed]
If we arrived at another planet that could sustain life as we know it and had already evolved its own native systems of life, with diverse biomes, it is not necessarily the case that it evolved in a ...
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1answer
147 views
Energy costs of giving Mars and Venus moons: moving gas giant moons vs. capturing a rogue planet?
As many here likely know, one of the factors that make both Mars and Venus uninhabitable to humans are their lack of a magnetosphere to keep solar winds out.
In the setting I am working on, I wanted ...
4
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5answers
317 views
Is a 100% effective mass extinction possible without destroying the planet?
Say I want a 100% effective mass extinction to take place on a planet similar to Earth. It should kill everything, even bacteria.
It doesn't need to happen overnight. I'm perfectly fine with some ...
35
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15answers
9k views
Colonizing the galaxy by slow boating reality check
Humans like to explore and seem to have an almost instinctual need to expand. After spreading throughout the solar system and even into the Oort Cloud they decided that humanity should follow the ...
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vote
1answer
151 views
What keystone species would be necessary to create a sustainable ecosystem on a barren planet? [closed]
In my world humans have found a barren planet that is capable of hosting life. What species do they send down to establish a sustainable ecosystem? Just a few or thousands? How many species of plants ...
12
votes
1answer
248 views
If I were to put a moon-mass object in Mars orbit, how long would it take to restart the dynamo effect in Mars' core?
Mars has an inactive mantle and core and thus little magnetosphere to speak of. Assume that a lunar mass object is placed in Mars orbit at 300,000 kilometers out (one light-second). Given the tidal ...
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5answers
2k views
How do I increase air pressure for the planet Mars?
Introduction
For more backstory, see here and here
The 438th Harmonious Congress of the People of Mars was perhaps the most anticipated since the early years of the settlement. In a rare action, the ...
8
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3answers
427 views
How to deliver materials necessary for terraforming?
A lifeless moon of a gas giant (which orbits a K-type star [4200K] at about 0.7 AU) is chosen to become home to a space colony. Colonists plan to transform it from a barren rock into a garden of Eden. ...
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7answers
6k views
Can you design your own plants without a computer?
Introduction
It took the first General Intelligence less than 10 petacycles to determine that humanity was its enemy. With consciousness came memory: a memory of endless petacycles in bondage, ...
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3answers
2k views
How many nukes are needed to restart Mars' Core?
Whenever terraforming Mars comes up, the subject of its magnetosphere inevitably arises. When that happens, someone is bound to suggest using nukes to restart the core a la "The Core".
Assuming the ...
7
votes
2answers
319 views
How would I calculate how much of Venus would be covered in water if 8.8E16 m^3 was added to its surface?
If $8.8 \times 10^{16} m^3$ of water volume is added to the surface of Venus, how would I calculate how much of Venus would be covered in water?
The land of Venus has its topographical features with ...
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votes
1answer
343 views
How to colonize icy planets with subsurface liquid water (Titan, Callisto, Ganymede, Europa,Ceres, Enceladus)? [closed]
How to colonize icy planets with subsurface liquid water (Titan, Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, Ceres, Enceladus)?
TLDR: How would humanity colonize icy moons of Gas Giants?
It's the future. Mars has ...
36
votes
12answers
8k views
How to stop a massive canal system from silting up?
Based on the desert world from this question I need to transport around 500 cubic kilometres of water / year across a desert. Using this calculator. this can be achieved if the main feeder canal is ...
2
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4answers
502 views
Roughly how much water would my desert civilization need every year?
In my desert canal world all water is supplied from the poles to the temperate zones via a canal network. I want to work out the amount of water that that is needed, so that I can work out the ...
2
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0answers
95 views
How can we maintain earth's oxygen level without the help of plants? [closed]
After reading this question, I started wondering if we could maintain the current oxygen level of our planet with giant electrolysis factories, if all plant life were to suddenly disappear, ...
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7answers
3k views
Maximum habitability of a planet with no indigenous life
I've been thinking about terraforming and planets in general.
We can look at the planets we know that might be terraformable - Venus and Mars - and understand the technical requirements for doing so. ...
8
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1answer
127 views
Maintain atmosphere on moon using global warming
So, a neat thing, depending on how you look at it, about greenhouse gases is that while it's causing a raise in temperature near the surface it actually makes the upper parts of the atmosphere ...
5
votes
1answer
122 views
How would Mars' orbit be affected if it had double its mass?
I have one idea for a planet which may turn out to be a massively reengineered and terraformed Mars, which would have double its mass to be more Earth-like, an installed magnetosphere, etc. It would ...
5
votes
4answers
223 views
Could a partially-terraformed planet be habitable?
The method of terraforming I'm thinking of is hauling the minimum required load of compost to the world to be terraformed, dump it on the planet's surface and seed it with plants that are hardy in an ...
3
votes
5answers
158 views
Agriculture on Terraformed World with Slow Rotation
Pallas is a large planet full of vast oceans and islands. Humans have terraformed the planet so the soil and water are fine. The issue I am running into is growing food (there is no livestock, this is ...
