Questions tagged [radiation]
For questions about electromagnetic waves and particle radiation.
159
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What is the best kind of nuclear reactor to use for a criticality accident if I want to expose my crew to a huge amount of radiation?
I've recently been making an attempt to write a short story that leans very heavily towards hard sci-fi. My area of expertise is primarily in biology and neurology, and the backbone of the story is ...
11
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12
answers
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How can a society have a group of people who are sick (from radiation?) while others are kept healthy?
I'm trying to plan out a post-apocalyptic novel that takes place on earth centuries or thousands of years after the apocalypse. The circumstances surrounding the apocalypse are vague as society has ...
2
votes
1
answer
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Could an exomoon be bombarded by electromagnetic radiation from its parent gas giant and still be habitable enough for life to evolve? [closed]
What I'm trying to accomplish here is having a setting where complex electronics are not feasible or so difficult to shield that they're not worth the time. Mechanical technology is the rule on this ...
2
votes
1
answer
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How do these plants capture cosmic rays?
The planet is a cold ammonia world. Its ocean is mostly made ammonia, with some traces of ices (mostly water ice) at the bottom of the ocean. The ambient temperature is 225ºK, and the pressure is 4 ...
4
votes
3
answers
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Radiosynthesis using radon?
I have made a few chemosynthetic and photosynthetic organisms as bases of the food chain for my worldbuilding project, and I thought why not make a radiosynthetic one?
Radon forms from the decay of ...
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2
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What effects to expect from 100+ generations living subterranean with constant low doses of radiation
Back story is that humans settled a foreign planet and the star began to die so humans went subterranean until the worst of the star death cycle passed (yes I know this process theoretically takes ...
8
votes
3
answers
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How to protect a water planet within a water ring of a quasar from radiation?
Tags: science-based habitability radiation
I am using this discovery as my starting point (Source)
An international team of astronomers led by the California Institute of Technology and involving the ...
2
votes
1
answer
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Radioactive planet wrecks civilisations every 5 millennia- How stable will it be?
Backstory
Okay, so for now, let's pretend the creatures on this planet are just the same as those on Earth. Humans, cattle, pets etc, are just the same, cause I haven't yet thought up the biological ...
2
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2
answers
340
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How much stuff can I alter using the weak force before I kill myself
Weak Nuclear Alchemy, that is the power I am asking about today, a power that was already discussed in What Would Powers Based of the Weak Force Look Like, but I am asking a more specific question. ...
4
votes
0
answers
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Ecological consequences of 750-gigaton natural nuke [closed]
A monazite sand placer deposit rich in thorium dioxide is slowly crushed into a sedimentary rock by plate tectonics. Water in it acts as a neutron moderator which ensures the ore formation doesn't ...
2
votes
1
answer
401
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Orbit of an earth-sized moon around a gas giant planet
I'm working on a world that is the habitable moon of a gas giant planet. For simplicity's sake, assume that the moon is about exactly Earth-size, and the gas giant planet is roughly Jupiter-sized, ...
2
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2
answers
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Would colonists living on a planet orbiting an F-class star need underground shelters to protect against radiation?
In my fictional universe, people have colonized a planet that orbits an F-class star. I know these stars give more intense radiation and solar flares than G-class stars. This leads me to think bunkers ...
3
votes
1
answer
146
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Reality Check: Decay in Intense Radiation
What would decay look like in an environment so intensely radioactive that no bacteria can survive it for any appreciable amount of time? This is in a bunker that's been hit by a malfunctioning 'dirty'...
7
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4
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How would a photon-based intelligence work in regard to relativity?
I want to do something interesting with Caleb Scharf’s speculation that hyper-advanced aliens could make themselves immortal by uploading themselves into the cosmic background radiation. These light ...
2
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2
answers
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Would an aircraft covered in radiation-absorbent sponges be invisible to radar?
Context:
In this semi-futuristic war history, some militaries looked at the ultra-high performance concrete used in bunkers and thought: "hum, the only problem with bunkers is that they can't ...