Questions tagged [stars]
For questions about luminous spheres of plasma held together by their own gravity, generally comprised primarily of hydrogen and helium.
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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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How soon can the first stars form?
Introduction
In our universe, the cosmic microwave background was formed approximately 400,000 years after the Big Bang. It was hot, but within a few million years after the Big Bang, it would no ...
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Can stars that are not powered by nuclear fusion exist?
Stars generate their energy by fusing lighter elements into heavier elements. The most common reaction in Sun-like stars is the conversion of hydrogen to helium via the proton-proton chain, but ...
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Is using the Sun as a sort of 'garbage dump' safe?
Is it safe for my civilization to launch rockets full of hazardous material into the Sun? This question applies to all stars, really, not just the sun.
By hazardous materials, I mainly mean ...
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How would people living in eternal day learn that stars exist?
In a world I am building, the day lasts longer than the year, 9 times longer in fact. The native people of this world have been forced to migrate around the world, both avoiding the scorching desert ...
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If every star in the universe except the Sun were destroyed, would we die?
If every star and planetary system and blackhole—all mass (not sure whether to include dark matter or not) except what directly makes up our solar system—in the Universe except the Sun were wiped from ...
user9182
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Is there a way to create a bomb to destroy a star?
I want to create a sci-fi story, and since galactic warfare is on a larger scale, nukes wouldn't do much damage (or I wouldn't think so anyway). I would like ideas about an ultimate deterrent that ...
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Killing a star safely
A messenger from the stars just arrived in peace but has brought horrible news.
A vast swarm of planet devouring phototropic insects are approaching from deep space and our only hope is to obscure or ...
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How do seasons work in a binary system (planet orbits one star, not both)?
I have a planet orbiting one star in a binary system. When the planet is exactly between the two stars it will experience a double day; when the primary sun sets the secondary one rises, no overlap. ...
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How much damage would a cupful of neutron star matter do to the Earth?
Suppose we used SCP-261, the vending machine that produces anything, and ask for a cup of neutron star. The machine instantaneously produces this.
Suppose also that the vending machine is located at ...
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Can a planet survive a supernova?
The Sun has nowhere near enough mass to enter the branch of stellar evolution that would lead to a supernova, fortunately for us. However, there are planets that orbit stars that are destined to go ...
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What would happen to a star if most of its energy were reflected back at it?
For simplicity, lets use our Sun as the star.
Next, a dyson sphere is built around it (completely enclosed solid sphere, not a dyson swarm or network, etc.). Handwave how it's built, it's not ...
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How can the stars be wrong, so that an observer realises they're not in our world anymore?
There is a common trope in fiction: when a character find themselves in a dark place out of this reality (somewhere in the eldritch realms, dreamscapes, lost cities of Carcosa or R'lyeh, etc), at ...
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Do different star systems experience time differently?
Somewhat in relation to this question - What could restrain post-singularity societies from spreading across the Galaxy?
I'm assuming not all star systems move at the same velocity in relation to the ...
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Creating a realistic world(s) map - Stars
This Query is part of the Worldbuilding Resources Article.
This question is a sort of follow-up to Samuel's previous world map question, Creating a realistic world(s) map - planetary systems.
Lots ...
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