All Questions
87
questions
53
votes
2
answers
17k
views
How would winds behave on a tidally locked planet?
If an earth-sized planet were tidally locked to a star, and was in the life zone of its star with an earth-like atmosphere, what would its wind patterns be like?
The planet would have one hot ...
- 46.4k
38
votes
2
answers
6k
views
Terrestrial Exoplanet Skies – I've Built a Visual Sky Chart. Is it Correct?
I'm an artist and I've been trying to find a comprehensive resource that would help me clearly identify likely sky colors for exoplanets that have atmospheres with a similar chemical composition to ...
- 1,150
31
votes
10
answers
9k
views
How can glass marbles naturally occur in a desert?
I had a dream that on my alien planet, there was a large desert that had naturally occurring glass marbles in the sand. My dream logic was that the sand was melted into glass and natural weathering ...
- 1,183
29
votes
11
answers
5k
views
Can a habitable world rain glass?
Requirements:
There is a solid surface.
Somewhere on the surface, the temperature exceeds 2,230 C, such that pure silica vaporizes.
Elsewhere on the surface, the temperature is at most 25 C, such ...
- 42.4k
29
votes
9
answers
6k
views
Keeping an "hot eyeball planet" wet
Consider such a tidally locked planet:
Many issues with tidally locked worlds have been discussed, but I'm not clear on how the water cycle for an otherwise Earth-like tidally locked world, would be ...
- 765
23
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Circulation patterns on a tidally-locked binary planet
A targeted hard-science spin-off from this question:
In a tidally-locked planet that rotates about a barycentric point that’s located outside of its own sphere, what would the coriolis forces be like?...
- 69.6k
21
votes
7
answers
3k
views
How do I maximize a planet's wave height (on average)?
Premise
I am in the formation phase of a fictional world. I would like one of its notable characteristics to be extremely large waves. On Earth, most of our large waves are triggered by earthquakes, ...
- 8,789
16
votes
3
answers
3k
views
A planet with all of its water underground
Question: Could a planet contain all of its (vast) oceans underground?
I imagined a planet with no surface oceans - and no water cycle above ground - but where life was still possible.
My initial ...
- 707
13
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Liquid water on both sides of a tidally locked planet. Feasible?
I'm brainstorming for a rocky planet with similar mass to that of Earth's, orbiting a red dwarf star. It is tidally locked with no natural satellites, yet I'm bent on having liquid water on both sun-...
- 139
11
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Why would an artificial planet inhabited by machines have seasons? [closed]
A super advanced civilization has created a machine with superior A.I. that could survive a supernova explosion from a nearby star approximately 3,600 parsecs from the Sun, the machine is programmed ...
- 48k
9
votes
10
answers
535
views
What kind of planetary conditions would prevent or severely limit air travel?
So I have a planet that is slightly larger than Earth, orbits an orange star slightly closer than earth orbits the sun, has extreme weather patterns and volatile tectonics. It has bad storms, ...
- 5,293
9
votes
4
answers
383
views
If we dug a really big hole on Mars, how long would it last?
How long will a 400 km wide 30 km deep pit (trench or crater) with a relatively shallow (for stability) gradient of slope of 20 degrees from the edge to the surface of the planets crust be expected to ...
- 9,673
9
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Cauldron of Storms: Geography to create and isolate localized mega-storms
Welcome to the Black Cauldron. The Cauldron of Storms, even. It's a sunny day now, perfect for fishing. Just not here. There's no boats on the water. The weather can go bad, quickly. And anything on ...
- 11.6k
8
votes
3
answers
1k
views
What would weather look like on a world with a 9-year day?
In a world I am building, the planet's days are longer than its years, with a single day taking 9 years. In all other ways, this planet is similar to Earth, but are there other differences I am ...
- 56.2k
7
votes
4
answers
539
views
Would storms on an ocean world harm the marine life?
On a habitable world completely covered in water, with no land above sea-level, there would presumably be storms of biblical proportions. Suppose this world has oceans so deep that the deeper layers ...
- 14.9k