Extreme Planet Makeover

Here's an interesting tool for sci-fi writers: NASA's website has a fun little interactive tool that allows you to change the age of a planet, its distance from a star, the type of star it's orbiting, and so forth.

It's meant to be educational, but I can see how a writer might use it to construct new worlds. I built myself a lovely super-Earth, bathed in the red light of a Class M star about .38 AU away.

Mwahaha, I feel like God.

I call it Doliea 581 d. And yes, I am writing a story about it.

Next question becomes, what music do you listen to while you're playing God? Methinks some Sigur Ros would be more appropriate to world-building. Or maybe some Tchiakovsky.