Is it theoretically possible for SE to have ringworlds or Dyson Spheres? Probably would be a mother to load them, but being able to explore a real-size ringworld even on low quality/LOD would be amazing.

Here's what I'm talking about:

[youtube]sR2296df-bc[/youtube]

I personally wouldn't care about any sort of design realism. Just give me a crust and some landscape/atmosphere on top, and I'm happy.

I've seen Mods of Hollow Worlds, by the mad modding genius Jack Dole on earlier versions of SE. Simply a Selena with a hole on one side and a tiny sun visible on the inside. Im sure you weren't able to enter the hole, but the interior was a full sized plant landscape only convex. I imagine it wouldn't be hard to enlarge the hole, add another on the other side and enlarge it too so you end up with a Terra looking ring in scale with a normal sized star in the center. Again you couldn't land. Maybe his magic is using transparent textures, maybe it is the clipping created by adding an invisible sphere partially inside a visible one. Who knows.

mad modding genius Jack Dole

Is it theoretically possible for SE to have ringworlds or Dyson Spheres

A Dyson sphere.
A hollow world.
A kind of ringworld.
The attempt of another ringworld in the old forum (Niven's Ringworld, but it has a different name).

You can not land in the ringworlds and in the hollow world.
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(My username is JackDole, not Jack Dole.)

Technically these sorts of things are in the to-do list, but they are for a much later time 

Technically it is not complex - just change the equations which morphs the cube (basic geometry of the terrain engine) into inverse sphere, or into a ring (throw out north and south faces of the cube, and "circularize" the rest). There are two problems though. First, we have to add a second non-inverse terrain which will cover the outside, add some static geometry to represent borders/engines/whatever. And the most important problem: atmosphere. Brunetone's code is designed for a spherical planet, I don't know if it is possible to adapt it to the ring. Yes I saw his Rama demo, but it seems filled with the air uniformly, while ringworld have a vacuum in the center.

Have you guys ever fought about how ringworlds can be possible? because I have, and here is my theory.

Ringworlds are totally possible because, for one, stars and planets are made by solar nebulae right? So, if the solar nebula was a dark nebula, (a nebula that is so dense that light can't get through,) and it was pressured by the gravity, it would probably get (along with stars) a lot of very big asteroids that hit each other to form planets, but because there was so much mass in the solar nebula, it would build to many planets! So eventually they would all collide and form a big ring because they keep orbiting they're parent stars.

Please correct me if I'm wrong about any of this.

They are not possible in nature (maybe artificially, but that raises other questions).  We never observe them in planet-forming simulations, even if the mass of the nebula was very high.  

The reason is that gravity acts to pull things into spheres.  Gravity cannot act to compress things into a solid ring like a ringworld.  If you have a disk filled with a high density of planets or protoplanets, then very quickly they will collide and form one or a few massive planets, while also scattering much of the other material away.

All nebulae that are forming stars with planets are opaque to visible light by the way.  Astronomical observations of star forming regions must use infrared to peer through the dust.

They are not possible in nature (maybe artificially, but that raises other questions).  We never observe them in planet-forming simulations, even if the mass of the nebula was very high.  

The reason is that gravity acts to pull things into spheres.  Gravity cannot act to compress things into a solid ring like a ringworld.  If you have a disk filled with a high density of planets or protoplanets, then very quickly they will collide and form one or a few massive planets, while also scattering much of the other material away.

All nebulae that are forming stars with planets are opaque to visible light by the way.  Astronomical observations of star forming regions must use infrared to peer through the dust.

Sure it would be very, very unlikely, but i'm saying if a star system had over one octillion humungous asteroids, and they're all very close together then they would collide because of they're gravity right? And so they would make an asteroid belt that is all one peace. also dark nebulae are the ones that don't let light get through, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing the orion nebula because starlight wasn't getting through, some nebulae reflect but that's another story. I wish that I could show you a video or something for people to understand what i'm saying. :) (PS) Your second paragraph says that "gravity pulls things into spheres" witch is not true because otherwise galaxies would be spheres.  

Your scenario would result in a planet (or a few).  Any part of the disk that is denser than the surroundings -- even slightly -- will pull more material into it from all sides.  Or even by random chance, some asteroids will clump into a more massive one than average, resulting in a similar instability.  Rather than forming a solid ring, the disk would fragment into one or more protoplanets that sweep up or scatter away the rest of the material.  Basically this is the planet formation process, though starting from asteroids.  By increasing the mass of the disk you just make the process faster.


The Orion Nebula contains many stages of star formation, and it is an emission nebula because it has already formed a number of stars which have ionized the surrounding gas.  There are also some parts of it which are currently forming planetary systems (proplyds).  

If you're interested in what collapsing molecular clouds look like when they are about to form stars inside them, they are opaque, especially in their cores where the protostars are forming.  We cannot observe all stages of star formation in visible light.

Your second paragraph says that "gravity pulls things into spheres" witch is not true because otherwise galaxies would be spheres.  

We're talking about solid objects formed from gravitational collapse.  Galaxies are not solid, nor collapsed fully (if they were they would be black holes).

Gravitational collapse forms disks when the particles have too much angular momentum to collapse further, and also are able to collide and settle into a preferred plane.  

Your scenario would result in a planet (or a few).  Any part of the disk that is denser than the surroundings -- even slightly -- will pull more material into it from all sides.  Or even by random chance, some asteroids will clump into a more massive one than average, resulting in a similar instability.  Rather than forming a solid ring, the disk would fragment into one or more protoplanets that sweep up or scatter away the rest of the material.  Basically this is the planet formation process, though starting from asteroids.  By increasing the mass of the disk you just make the process faster.


The Orion Nebula contains many stages of star formation, and it is an emission nebula because it has already formed a number of stars which have ionized the surrounding gas.  There are also some parts of it which are currently forming planetary systems (proplyds).  

If you're interested in what collapsing molecular clouds look like when they are about to form stars inside them, they are opaque, especially in their cores where the protostars are forming.  We cannot observe all stages of star formation in visible light.

Your second paragraph says that "gravity pulls things into spheres" witch is not true because otherwise galaxies would be spheres.  

We're talking about solid objects formed from gravitational collapse.  Galaxies are not solid, nor collapsed fully (if they were they would be black holes).

Gravitational collapse forms disks when the particles have too much angular momentum to collapse further, and also are able to collide and settle into a preferred plane.  

I get it now, Thanks Watsisname!

Sure thing mate.  I know it'd be neat if they could form naturally like that, but the universe just really prefers other shapes.



An interesting discussion could perhaps be made for how such a world could be constructed artificially.  JackDole has also done a lot of cool modding of these things in Space Engine if you haven't seen them yet.

A ringworld would require some kind of perfect balance during the collapse to form.  Even with trillions of solar system formations in the universe, I think it's safe to say that it wont happen.  Formation is chaotic.  Arguing the possibility for a natural ringworld sounds like arguing that it's possible to empty a sack of sand from an airplane and find every single individual grain of sand perfectly balanced on top of each other when all settles, if you just empty the sack right.

Amazing analogy. Absolutely nailed it.

All of this reminds myself of the Larry Niven novels I read back in the 70's. Maybe such artificial constructs can be implemented as a subset of the spaceships?

All of this reminds myself of the Larry Niven novels I read back in the 70's. Maybe such artificial constructs can be implemented as a subset of the spaceships?