“CHON?”, you might ask; “What’s that?”. It’s an affectionate acronym for the four most common vital chemical elements in the biochemistry of life as we know it. To wit, carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), and nitrogen (N). The human body is 95..6% CHON by … Continue readingThe Tyranny of CHON
What would be “next level” beyond “Wings of Fire”, my story of an alternate-historical lunar landing where an Apollo-13-style explosion proves deadly, and occurs after the lander is already on the surface? This was, as in our timeline, the early space age, so backups, redundancy, … Continue readingGhost Ships of Titan
So far in my worldbuilding of our stellar neighborhood I’ve avoided Earth twins or Earth analogues for the most part…but zooming out, it’s just a bit too tempting to look at a solar analogue star (a star that’s very similar to our own sun, a … Continue readingLambda Aurigae: Earth’s Evil Twin
I already have a frankly rather interesting concept for a planet dominated by sharp relief, to the tune of nigh-Martian highlands and the usual thick-air jungle-y lowlands, with the ocean reservoirs being underground, primarily. “Cascadia Below, Mars Above” I called it; but siting it in … Continue readingWorlds of Ice, Snow, and Salt
Go through the list of the nearest stars, and binaries abound…but few are the close binaries needed for the iconic twin sunset scenes from classic sci-fi. Gliese 866, better known by its variable-star designation EZ Aquarii, is the nearest possibility: located 11.1 light-years from Earth, … Continue readingBlack Seas, Red Sky, Three Suns: Worldbuilding EZ Aquarii
Well, my brainstorming for planets kick continues, now with a little tool for calculating planetary equilibrium temperature (we need better worldbuilding software, after all…), and also with some ideas for a planetary system that was discovered early on but is now often overlooked: Upsilon Andromedae. … Continue readingThe Pale Green Dot, Filtered through a Dream
Thalassa this, Thalassa that…yes, my version of Proxima Centauri’s potentially habitable planet (speculative, but based on real science!) is a fascinating place, but what about the rest of the system? Proxima is just one part of a triple-star system…two of which are some of the … Continue readingWorldbuilding Alpha Centauri