Questions tagged [light]
For questions concerning electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum.
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Is it reasonable that my human-habitable alternate universe look different?
In the story I am planning, I wanted to have two universes, one just like ours, in which humans evolved, and another that is sufficiently similar to our own that humans may survive, but in which ...
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What would a beacon of light activated on Earth's surface look like from space?
Would it be physically possible to have a beacon on the Earth's surface so powerful its beam would continue outwards past the Earth, further into space, and out into the cosmos? What would that beam ...
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Could you breed livestock with structurally colored wool?
Imagine you have low magic, low tech nomads with a magical equivalent of microscopes, and a rudimentary understanding of genetics and optics (blame magic). They are selectively breeding livestock for ...
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industrial grade UVC light design to cause 1st degree burns on skin after 5 second exposure
First of all the base setting, a non realistic world that has humans, and also beings some could be particularly weak to strong UV: vampires, eyeballs of anything that has eyeballs, beings with skin ...
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Will changing the range of EM that my aliens can see affect how they can relate colors to humans?
We have humans, who can see in the spectrum of 380-740 nm.
Let’s take the aliens, who can see in the spectrum of 500-860 nm. This gives them vision into the infrared. They also cannot see purple as ...
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Bioluminescence due to photosynthesis
I'm wondering about how to make my photosynthesising organisms all glow. Basically, I want to make bioluminescence a consequence of photosynthesis, as if the organelles themselves produce light in the ...
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Artificially lighting a large underground city
I'm trying to think of a somewhat plausible way to create artificial "sunlight" in a very large underground city. To summarise some key points:
The cavern containing this city is ...
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Animals with fur that fluoresces under UV, and a star with high UV levels--how dramatic is the affect, and how badly would it mess up camouflage?
I am considering the possibility of giving the creatures on my planet fur with UV-florescent pigments as an extra defense against the high levels of UV radiation from their star, an F3.5V
This planet ...
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Would a star's spectroscopy be stable enough on approach to use it as a navigational reference from a great distance?
NOTE: The offered "duplicate" question IS NOT WHAT I AM ASKING. Alternative methods of navigation ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE as answers. I am specifically asking whether or not a ship traveling in ...
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Plant life on a planet with extremely bright "moon"? [duplicate]
The planet in question is part of a Binary Planet pair, both of which are tidally locked to each other at a fairly close distance (~129,000 km) from each other, meaning that the "moon" is ...
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Is a blue sun/star visually possible with a orange sky?
I know an orange sky is achievable in at least two ways; large particles in the air (for example: smoke); or a thicker and:or denser atmosphere, so that light is getting bounced around and only longer ...
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How to create a "fog of war" on an interstellar scale?
I want to create a universe where the visible universe is much smaller than that of our own. The idea is to create a sort of "fog of war" around every star system. In our universe, you can ...
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Would it be possible to build a powerless holographic projector?
For one of my (many) science-fiction projects, I am designing immense rotating space-habitats. These titanic structures, (similar to Bishop rings; see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(...
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Why would bioluminescence evolve in a Europa-like world?
In my sci-fi universe, I have a planet called Tateos Prime. It is a Pluto or Europa-like world, which orbits too far from its twin red suns to support liquid water at its surface. However, geothermal ...
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What color should my planet's skies be?
Assuming the skies are clear of suspended particles, what color should they be at mid-day if viewed with human eyes?
The planet is larger and twice as massive as Earth, with a nearly identical ...
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