All these worlds...

[raymoh]

"Rock Rose Garden": A vast marshland on the Earth-like world "Zavijava IV": Strangely eroded rock formations resemble open rose petals. The planet is in its mid-Proterozoic: first land plants increase the oxygen concentration of the atmosphere. Two moons provide complex tides. However, the evolution of Zavijava IV is unlikely to continue, because its sun, Beta Virginis (Zavijava) will already leave the main sequence in a few hundred million years and evolve into a red giant and will probably destroy most of the already existing life on its planets.

Beta Virginis, an F9 main sequence star at a distance of 35.7 light years is more massive, larger, hotter and more luminous than our Sun. It is about 3 billion years old and at the end of its dwell time on the main sequence.
Until today no concrete evidence for a planetary system has been found around Beta Virginis. However, the presence of (three) gas giants is discussed.

I took the liberty to assume a planetary system around Beta Virginis: Complex and chaotic processes during the early phase of the formation of this system changed the planetary orbits partly drastically, so that the planets are not located where one would search for them from Earth...

[Dune]

Cool! I especially like the contexts you always describe with your renders.

[mhaze]

Love those rock shapes!

[raymoh]

A reinterpretation of my "Waterworld II" scene:

This is a Hycean world (Hydrogen + Ocean = Hycean).
Hycean worlds are still hypothetical, but quite possible extreme worlds that could harbor life:

Oversized, hot Super-Earths or Mini-Neptunes with hydrogen-enriched high-pressure atmospheres and higher gravity than Earth. They have a planet-wide ocean, sometimes probably hundreds of kilometers deep, but no land masses of any kind.
Life here would probably take place on the surface and down to a depth of several kilometers. The bottom of this planet-spanning ocean is an extreme place that cannot be recreated in any laboratory....

My hypothetical surface of such a Hycean world shows a continent-sized life form, similar to a mixture of an earthly slime mold and a jellyfish. It floats on the surface and is connected with innumerable filaments, which reach also into several kilometers of depth. It feeds on the one hand by a form of local photosynthesis, but also lives "predatorily" by capturing and digesting microorganisms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hycean_planet

Many thanks to Dune for his "Translucent Waves Mockup" clip, which I used here and whose foam I tried to "convert" to a living creature....

[crisb]

goodness... I didn't think that image could be any more dramatic.. wow !

[DocCharly65]

I heard about these planets in the last weeks too, and it is believed that life forms there are more likely than initially assumed.

Great render!

[Dune]

Great effect. I wouldn't want to swim there

[pclavett]

Impressive series of worlds...... stunning atmospherics and lighting ! Stunning work !

[raymoh]

Eris is the second largest dwarf planet after Pluto. Almost as large as Pluto but somewhat more massive, it orbits the Sun in a highly elliptical orbit. On average it is more than 70 percent farther away from the sun than Pluto, and accordingly even colder. Eris probably consists mostly of rocky material, but its surface appears very bright, almost white, due to various types of ice and snow (water, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, and other hydrocarbons). In "summer", at Eris' closest approach to the sun, various frozen components of the surface evaporate or sublime and form a temporary "atmosphere". Eris itself has a small moon, not quite as large as the asteroid Ceres.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_(dwarf_planet)

My imaginary render shows this "summer" on Eris. The sun is the brightest star in an otherwise slightly hazy starry sky, but it is still about 300 times brighter than at full moon on Earth.
Dysnomia, the small moon is close to the horizon and is illuminated by the bright Eris also on its night side.

[Jo Kariboo]

A very austere atmosphere. I find it very successful!

[raymoh]

A view from a dusty, about Mars-sized imaginary desert moon to Kepler-277c, or "Behemoth" as I have named the planet. Behemoth is the lower mass companion of two "Mega Earths" in a solar system over 3000 light years away.
Mega-Earth
Kepler-277c
A huge rocky planet, only slightly smaller than Neptune, but with 2/3 the mass of Saturn. Hellish conditions prevail on the surface: Temperatures like on Venus, a gravity almost 6 times higher than on Earth and a gigantic air pressure (if an atmosphere exists at all).
I took the artistic liberty to depict Behemoth with a double ring system of two asteroids broken apart. Very likely it will not be stable for a long time and the debris will fall on the planet sooner or later. In the sky there is another imaginary moon of the giant planet.


Thanks to Kadri for his "Basic Ring Planet Example".

[Kadri]

Nice images.

I like "Summer on Eris.png" the most.

[raymoh]

Two more snapshots of my imaginary primeval planet "Zavijava IV", which could orbit the star Beta Virginis.

"Skyscraper Range":
Remnants of an ancient, eroded coastal mountain range. In the foreground an extensive mudflat in which algae-like organisms grow and are currently "blooming". A large pond has formed in an old meteorite crater.
In a few hundred million years, when the system's sun begins to turn into a red giant, life on this planet will again gradually disappear. What remains is a hot, atmosphereless Mercury-like desert world.

"The Great Central Desert" :
The interior of Zavijava IV's only (super) continent is characterized by a gigantic stone and sand desert. With daytime temperatures of over 60° Celsius and nighttime temperatures that can drop below freezing, even the largest rock formations break apart over time.
Life exists on this world until now only in coastal regions, where mountains provide moisture, but at the same time these coastal mountain ranges prevent clouds and rain from reaching the interior of the continent.

[mhaze]

Amazing work!

[billhd]

Perusing thru..lots of neat work.