New answers tagged

0 votes

Question about speculative human biology

Low gravity speciation will never occur, leaving these humans effectively the same as modern humans, but there may still be some change in variance of genes that will can lead to their looking like a ...
dsollen's user avatar
  • 33.5k
0 votes

How would a government lay claim over a Space Colony that it never founded? What legal arguments could they make to cite it’s always been theirs?

You are describing Annexation There have been many examples in history for Governments to claim land - and many methods for doing so. There would be no difference in terms of a Government claiming ...
flox's user avatar
  • 21.1k
2 votes

How would a government lay claim over a Space Colony that it never founded? What legal arguments could they make to cite it’s always been theirs?

So, I'm British - and here's how we did it for Centuries: Step 1: Show up. Step 2: Put a Flag up (cue the Eddy Izzard skit about Flags) Step 3: Unilaterally declare it part of the British Empire. Step ...
TheDemonLord's user avatar
2 votes

How would a government lay claim over a Space Colony that it never founded? What legal arguments could they make to cite it’s always been theirs?

A government can put claims on any territory they fancy, no justification needed. Remember that Spain and Portugal claimed all the lands east or west of a certain meridian back in the days, without ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
  • 277k
1 vote

Is it possible for a planetary ring to exist beyond a planet's Roche limit?

Yes, but it would be unstable beyond about an order of magnitude greater than the roche limit. The outer edge of Saturn's rings is 8.1 roche limits distant, for example. The reason being is as soon as ...
Anthony Khodanian's user avatar
0 votes

On Habitable Moon Systems

Short Answer: You might want to consider some suggestions and lower the mass of your planet to 1 Jupiter mass or 317.8 Earth masses. And/or circularize the orbit of your moon by avoiding any other ...
M. A. Golding's user avatar
0 votes

On Habitable Moon Systems

Wikipedia cites Henning et al. 2009, who mention that you do indeed get figures greater than $10^{18} \textrm{ W}$ from this equation in extreme cases (like the one you've described). Their paper, ...
parasoup's user avatar
  • 3,640
-1 votes

Is it possible to have stable system where the moon of earth-like planet is only visible part of the year from a fixed point on a surface?

This is definitely tricky to manage for an Earth-Moon-Sun like system. The daily motion of the Sun is generated by the rotation of the Earth. The seasons are caused by the orbit of the Earth around ...
Richard Kirk's user avatar
  • 7,068
5 votes

Is it possible to have stable system where the moon of earth-like planet is only visible part of the year from a fixed point on a surface?

I think that is what happens when the planet is close to the point of becoming tidally locked to its moon: when the duration of a revolution around its axis is close but not the same as the duration ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
  • 277k
0 votes

What astronomical situation could account for the PERCEPTION of a very erratic day / night cycle for a planetbound population with limited science?

My offer to you: The planet with two-and-a-half suns, with the best new years eve fireworks one could ever ask for! It is nothing very spectacular, sadly, but it may be plausible up to a point. What ...
Confused Merlin's user avatar
0 votes

Could Moon Phases work in a Concave Hollow-Earth?

This is profoundly silly, but I love your illustration so I am going to have a go at this. As drawn, the ball with all the stars on is small compared to the void in the sphere. Either the sky would be ...
Richard Kirk's user avatar
  • 7,068
5 votes
Accepted

Could Moon Phases work in a Concave Hollow-Earth?

If you look at a model of our Solar System, you will notice that we observe phases only for the bodies (Mercury, Venus and Moon) orbiting between the Sun and Earth, due to the relative positions they ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
  • 277k
2 votes

How would a planet's surface be younger than the planet itself?

In the case of Europa, but also Io, tidal forces from Jupiter's gravity cause internal heating, leading to increased volcanic and tectonic activity. For instance, Io is the most volcanically active ...
cconsta1's user avatar
  • 866
3 votes

How would a planet's surface be younger than the planet itself?

There's a difference between material age and appearance age @L.Dutch is absolutely right about renewing the surface. (I upvoted his answer). In that case, the material age of the surface (e.g., how ...
JBH's user avatar
  • 117k
11 votes

How would a planet's surface be younger than the planet itself?

In short, you need a process that keeps renewing the surface. One of the reason is plate tectonics. For this very reason also Earth surface is younger than the planet itself, and finding very old ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
  • 277k
1 vote

Habitable Planet with Multiple Moons

This sounds really nifty. The planets in our solar system are arranged in a progressive distance from the sun - the outer ones' orbits are farther apart. The sun's gravitational pull on them is weaker ...
Wood's user avatar
  • 41

Top 50 recent answers are included