Jump to content

[minor] Why is Minmus Frozen?


Misterspork

Recommended Posts

It should be getting the same amount of light as kerbin and the mun, and unless the surface reflects 80+% of the light hitting it, it should be roughly the same temperature range as the mun.

Anyone have an explanation for this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It should be getting the same amount of light as kerbin and the mun, and unless the surface reflects 80+% of the light hitting it, it should be roughly the same temperature range as the mun.

Anyone have an explanation for this?

Maybe it DOES reflect 80+% of the light hitting it.

Or, y\'know, maybe there\'s a giant refrigerator hidden inside it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, Kerbin has a dense atmosphere to keep those kerbals warm (In fairness, we don\'t know how \'warm\' even that is. The whole planet appears temperate or arctic, afterall) even in the wan light of a red dwarf star.

I assume that the Mun is just as cold as Minmus, except that it is dry unlike minmus which has some sort of frozen liquid filling those seas.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, Kerbin has a dense atmosphere to keep those kerbals warm (In fairness, we don\'t know how \'warm\' even that is. The whole planet appears temperate or arctic, afterall) even in the wan light of a red dwarf star.

I assume that the Mun is just as cold as Minmus, except that it is dry unlike minmus which has some sort of frozen liquid filling those seas.

Iunno man, I kinda like my hidden fridge theory.

Maybe it\'s the new base of Dr. Neo Cortex, planning his next triumph failure over Crash Bandicoot?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

draft_lens7270852module60119222photo_1254226325Snowmiser.jpg

Somewhere, deep within minmus, is a throne room. We just haven\'t found the entrance yet.

His evil plot this time is to lure thousands of rockets to the mysterious moonlet, and steal the return stage fuel to power his giant freeze ray and cover all of Kerbin with permanent ice.

He\'s hit an unexpected delay due to the sheer number of arriving craft which either didn\'t bother to bring any return fuel, or exploded before he could steal it...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It could be a chance at the time of planetary creation, a large amount of water has simply ended up on Minmus. There are lakes on the planet that are frozen too, suggesting some of this ice becomes liquid and forms lakes, but i think it simply cools down again too fast, the orbit of Minmus is still significantly smaller than the Earth\'s Moon.

That\'s just my attempted realist take at this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Because it lacks an atmosphere. Why do you think the surface of the moon is around -100 degrees C?

It could be a chance at the time of planetary creation, a large amount of water has simply ended up on Minmus. There are lakes on the planet that are frozen too, suggesting some of this ice becomes liquid and forms lakes, but i think it simply cools down again too fast, the orbit of Minmus is still significantly smaller than the Earth\'s Moon.

That\'s just my attempted realist take at this.

Again, The lack of atmosphere would make any fluid evaporate.

(I might be wrong in this statement as I vaguely remember a video about ionized fluids (or something like that) that didn\'t evaporate in vacuum)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Because it lacks an atmosphere. Why do you think the surface of the moon is around -100 degrees C?

The moon reaches boiling temperatures as well, Minmus should by all means, unless a certain explanation is reached, be perfectly circular due to it\'s ice being molten repeteadly.

Of course it may just be the colour of the rock there.

Which is the explanation i am going with, the lakes are molten sometimes and the \'\'ice/snow\'\' is simply rock that looks like it\'s frozen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The moon reaches boiling temperatures as well, Minmus should by all means, unless a certain explanation is reached, be perfectly circular due to it\'s ice being molten repeteadly.

Of course it may just be the colour of the rock there.

Which is the explanation i am going with, the lakes are molten sometimes and the \'\'ice/snow\'\' is simply rock that looks like it\'s frozen.

Everything, given enough time, will create a sphere. It could be that Kerbin have experienced an event similar to the event that created the moon and gave the earth a wobble (Lighter elements scattering and eventually clumping to create minmus.), but the teory that I am going with is that it is an exo-planet captured by Kerbins gravity well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course it may just be the colour of the rock there.

Which is the explanation i am going with, the lakes are molten sometimes and the \'\'ice/snow\'\' is simply rock that looks like it\'s frozen.

some more cheating later, I got a Kerbal on Minmus. Here\'s me jetpacking around over a frozen methane lake:

HarvesteR @ http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=13530.msg219016#msg219016

Straight from the man himself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A pseudorealistic explanation I can imagine:

It actually slowly (similar to a comet) evaporates on the day side, but the gas molecules don\'t leave Minmus (because there\'s enough gravity) and fall back on the night side and freeze.

Anyway even this won\'t work IRL, because solar radiation would blow the gas off making a beautiful comet tail.

Or maybe there\'s very low actual level of radiation from Kerbol, so that Minmus-type frozen worlds are a normal thing at Kerbin orbit, but Kerbin itself has very strong (like on Venus, or maybe stronger) greenhouse effect (quite possible with that dense atmosphere) and much heating from the core that allows for liquid water. The only question would be why the same ice didn\'t formed on the Mun?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Who says it\'s frozen ? Do you have temperature readings? Who says it\'s ice/water?

The flat features could very well be solidified lava lakes. There are quite a few substances that have high temperature melting points. There could be a gazillion geological processes that could have caused those 'lakes'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe the low points of Minmus are supposed to be frozen methane lakes as stated by HarvesteR on one of his posts to the .16 updates that show kerbols jetpacking around Minmus. As for the Mun, i\'m not entirely sure. It probably is very dry, Mun has a higher gravity and a thicker atmosphere i believe and Minmus is smaller with practically no atmosphere. I\'m willing to bet its just the composition of the moons, theres no way of knowing entirely without some sort of measurement of the elements in these terrestrial bodies. Until then, we\'ll just assume its frozen because the makers wanted it to be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...