Is Laythe Possible IRL?

[regex]

5 hours ago, Abastro said:

What will the orbital parameters be if Laythe is scaled up for IRL?

If we use Kerbin's sea level radius compared to Earth mean radius as the baseline scale then the Sol system is about 10.6 times bigger than the Kerbol system. So Laythe's SMA would be 288,150km if scaled up, which puts it inside Io orbit.

[kerbiloid]

KSP planet orbits have the same proportions like Solar System ones.
So, AU would be scaled, too. And probably they have another rescale factor.

[Reusables]

4 hours ago, peadar1987 said:

So I actually messed up the equation a bit. The actual expected temperature is 130K. For a really dark body you can get that up to maybe 160K. CO₂ starts to sublimate at about 190K, so if you added some heat from impacts or large scale vulcanism or something, you could a actually get a reasonably thick CO₂ atmosphere. Pulling the fudge of adding massive amounts of tidal and radiogenic heating, and doubling the amount of energy reaching the planet (an extremely optimistic case) raises the expected temperature to 170K. Turns out that adding to the energy flux has pretty rapidly diminishing returns, due to the fourth power in the Stefan Boltzmann law. Increasing the temperature a little bit increases the amount lost to space by a heck of a lot.

If you had a REALLY thick CO₂ atmosphere you could probably get enough of a greenhouse effect to maintain extremely salty or ammonia-rich liquid water at the surface.

New numbers here if you want to play with them.

Well, the first constant should be 0.25 as it receives solar flux in the disk and emits on the whole surface (the sphere). Then it correctly gives 252K for Earth. With its greenhouse effect, it goes up to 288K IRL. (Although the Venus rotates slowly, the atmosphere equates the temperature of dayside and nightside. 0.5 is given for dayside of atmosphere-less slow-rotating planet)

Besides, the Venus will retain temperature of 231K on the jupiter orbit.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=737K*sqrt(Semi+Major+axis+of+Venus+%2F+Semi+Major+Axis+of+Jupiter)

Considering the relatively high albedo of the Venus, this can be bigger.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Reusables
More explanation.

[Reusables]

3 hours ago, regex said:

If we use Kerbin's sea level radius compared to Earth mean radius as the baseline scale then the Sol system is about 10.6 times bigger than the Kerbol system. So Laythe's SMA would be 288,150km if scaled up, which puts it inside Io orbit.

Thanks!

Sorry, but can I ask for real scaled value of Jool's mass and Laythe's radius, too? Is it right to scale the mass 100 times and the radius 10 times?

[regex]

16 minutes ago, Abastro said:

Sorry, but can I ask for real scaled value of Jool's mass and Laythe's radius, too? Is it right to scale the mass 100 times and the radius 10 times?

You cannot use any planetary density in KSP at face value IRL, they all consist of some sort of ultra-dense unobtanium.

Using the 1/10.6 scale convention, Jool would be 63,600km in radius, making it slightly smaller than Jupiter. Applying Jupiter's density of 1.33g/cm^2 we should get a mass of 1.43E27 kg, if I've done my math correctly.

Laythe would be 5,300km in radius.

Edited February 2, 2017 by regex

[Reusables]

 

19 minutes ago, regex said:

You cannot use any planetary density in KSP at face value IRL, they all consist of some sort of ultra-dense unobtanium.

Using the 1/10.6 scale convention, Jool would be 63,600km in radius, making it slightly smaller than Jupiter. Applying Jupiter's density of 1.33g/cm^2 we should get a mass of 1.43E27 kg, if I've done my math correctly.

Laythe would be 5,300km in radius.

Thanks, again!

Got this: http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2*G*(1.43*10^27kg)*(5300km)%2F(288100km)^3&x=0&y=0.

So I was wrong, tidal force is still small here. It's neglectable even on 2 times of its own radius.

(Reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force)

Then... what will happen if we send the Venus to the IRL Jool orbit? The tidal force will still be able to give enough heat to be geologically active. Probably, high pressure planet with water? (Though no oxygen in this case)

(Or jupiter orbit as well. This can happen as solar system is not perfectly stable)

Edited February 2, 2017 by Reusables
Additional Explanation

[regex]

8 minutes ago, Abastro said:

Then... what will happen if we send the Venus to the IRL Jool orbit?

You still won't have an IRL planet resembling Laythe.

[Reusables]

10 hours ago, regex said:

You still won't have an IRL planet resembling Laythe.

I think so, too. The pressure epn't match at first. Though it'll be interesting enough, I think.

Maybe oxygen could exist from the H2O vapor consisting most of the planet atmosphere?

EDIT: Just realized that water really likes to absorb carbon dioxide, effectively cooling the planet. So no, nothing interesting left, just IRL Laythe impossible.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Reusables
See EDIT

[MinimalMinmus]

How unlikely is it for Laythe to have some more exotic ( and potent) greenhouse gases  (I mentionned CFCs but maybe others too)?

[peadar1987]

10 hours ago, MinimalMinmus said:

How unlikely is it for Laythe to have some more exotic ( and potent) greenhouse gases  (I mentionned CFCs but maybe others too)?

Pretty unlikely, as they would naturally just freeze out of the atmosphere even more easily than CO ₂ given the chance. You'd need some sort of massive thermal event, like global volcanism far greater than anything we've seen anywhere in the solar system (Io doesn't even pump out enough gas to form a decent atmosphere) or else a massive bombardment of small bodies energetic enough to vaporise all the ice but not blast it off into space.

[MinimalMinmus]

2 minutes ago, peadar1987 said:

Pretty unlikely, as they would naturally just freeze out of the atmosphere even more easily than CO ₂ given the chance. You'd need some sort of massive thermal event, like global volcanism far greater than anything we've seen anywhere in the solar system (Io doesn't even pump out enough gas to form a decent atmosphere) or else a massive bombardment of small bodies energetic enough to vaporise all the ice but not blast it off into space.

Just checked: Tetrafluoromethane boils at temperatures as low as 150K, and is 6500 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. It may be possible to initiate a feedback loop thanks to volcanism: One of the probably numerous Laythian "black smokers" hit a pocket of CF4, causing it to melt and boil, heating the planet to, say, -100°C, causing the resto of CF4 to boil. This may be a pretty stable system, as Kerbol is far away and less likely to damage the gas while in the athmosphere, and remember Laythe has a double-layered magnetic shield, one from itself and one from it's parent.

So, this theory would explain the "runaway greenhouse effect" we would need for Laythe to have this temperature.

The caveat is of course that while fluorine is insanely reactive, including on carbon, and CF4 is readily formed when carbon burns near fluorine, Fluorine is somewhat rare on itself.

I guess we could guess this scenario: Jool would be the source of fluorine, as well as methane gas. Such a mileange would readily explode into fluorhydric acid and CF4, with the spark being one of the giant's thunderstorms. Then, some of Jool's athmophere may have leaked during it's youth, spraying Laythe with Joolian gases, eventually triggering the aforementionned effect.

Then again, while a native life may adapt to an athmosphere rich in fluoroform (freon) and possibly even chloroform, this would explain the "helmet needed" part, as all those gases would be pretty bad for lungs on the long term.

[kerbiloid]

CF₄ + H₂O = ?

[Reusables]

On 2017. 2. 7. at 7:35 PM, MinimalMinmus said:

Just checked: Tetrafluoromethane boils at temperatures as low as 150K, and is 6500 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. It may be possible to initiate a feedback loop thanks to volcanism: One of the probably numerous Laythian "black smokers" hit a pocket of CF4, causing it to melt and boil, heating the planet to, say, -100°C, causing the resto of CF4 to boil. This may be a pretty stable system, as Kerbol is far away and less likely to damage the gas while in the athmosphere, and remember Laythe has a double-layered magnetic shield, one from itself and one from it's parent.

So, this theory would explain the "runaway greenhouse effect" we would need for Laythe to have this temperature.

Actual runaway greenhouse effect is caused by water evaporating into the atmosphere. For this to happen with CF4, it should be abundant enough. I doubt that it would happen, since fluorine is one of the most rare element in the universe for its mass...

On 2017. 2. 7. at 9:42 PM, kerbiloid said:

CF₄ + H₂O = ?

CF4 is stable, the reaction won't happen without combustion or something.

Though, it's slightly soluble to water, which can be problem to hold certain amount of CF4. (20mg/L compared to CO2's 1.45g/L)

To compensate this, abundant amount of fluorine(consisting CF4) is needed, considering the vast ocean of Laythe.

[Lowi_Sace]

On 1/31/2017 at 11:08 PM, Leafbaron said:

This video the guy builds the kerbol system in universe sandbox, which i've read is a very accurate simulator. i believe he talks about the joolian system around 14 minutes. 

The oxygen very possible, however the liquid water not so much. The gravitational tidal forces are not enough to keep the planet above freezing. but honestly who knows. anything is possible. if laythe had a molten iron core like earth things could be different. 

Higher salt conentration, a very active core and warmth from jool (probably mostelly from radiation) could maybe add up to make it just not freeze.

High radiation from jool might be heating the planet, but would also explain why there is no life on the surface of laythe

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/a-star-like-the-sun-has-six-gas-giants-orbiting-it-with-two-in-its-habitable-zone%3famp

Two of the planets — HD34445b and f — are located in the star's habitable zone: the region around the star where liquid water can exist on the surface of a body. For this star, that's about 200 – 350 million kilometers out. Closer than the inner edge and it gets too hot (for a terrestrial (rocky) planet, you get a runaway greenhouse effect and the planet gets scorched), and farther than the outer edge and even the best greenhouse effect won't keep you from freezing.

 

HD 34445b is 311 million km out, and HD 34445f is 230 million. Not bad

Now again, these are gas giants! HD 34445 b is 200 times the mass of the Earth, and HD 34445f, while smaller, is still about 40 times our heft. These are not going to be planets our Earth.

But they might have moons. Exomoons! Our own solar system's gas giants have huge retinues of such satellites, and some are big: Ganymede (orbiting Jupiter) and Titan (Saturn) are about as big as Mercury! And it’s not too ridiculous to think even bigger ones might exist, making some of these moons potentially Earth-sized, and maybe, maybe, Earth-like.