Laythe realism.

[Hyperspace Industries]

They are trying to make the planets and moons in ksp2 more realistic (Example, glass minimus), so, how the kraken could you explain laythe, or change it (while not changing the delta v requirements) to be explained by real world (scaled down) physics?

My theory: Laythe has oceans of liquid nitrogen and oxygen, the atmosphere also consists of those gasses (in gaseous forms) thus, letting air breathing engines work.

[Axelord FTW]

Tidal heating. A moon like Europa having a thick enough atmosphere to retain surface heat might have something like surface-apparent liquid. It would probably have to be an hypersaturated solution instead of plain water, though.

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Axelord FTW said:

Tidal heating. A moon like Europa having a thick enough atmosphere to retain surface heat might have something like surface-apparent liquid. It would probably have to be an hypersaturated solution instead of plain water, though.

tidal heating is not enough to justify liquid water on the surface at that distance from kerbol.

it could be much warmer than it should be for its distance from the sun; it could be as "warm" as duna. it could still have geysers, cryovolcanoes, and thermal pools. warm rivers coming out from those. but a whole ocean? seems a bit too much, even under the most favorable assumptions

[Axelord FTW]

Unusual concentration of decaying elements in the core?

[The Aziz]

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/206076-laythe-closer-to-jool-in-ksp-2/

[Pthigrivi]

As mentioned in the above thread Laythe is even closer to Jool than Io is to Jupiter, factoring KSP’s 1/10 scaling, so there should be plenty of tidal heat depending on its resonance. All we’d have to imagine is that unlike Io Laythe’s volatiles were  not burned away early in its history, and that the relationship between Laythe and Jool’s magnetoshere is protective. Io has a complex interaction with Jupiter’s magnetic field that places it inside a particularly strong ribbon, stripping away material ejected by Io’s frequent eruptions. It could be that Laythe has retained a liquid iron core and produces its own protective magnetic field, shielding its atmosphere. 
 

So Laythe is possible. But I do think it would be cool if its archipelagos had active volcanos among them as evidence of a tidally heated molten mantle. It sounds like radiation will be a factor in KSP2 so there could be detectable evidence of a magnetic field as well. 

Edited January 2, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Pthigrivi]

And this might be more controversial but Id also love to see reefs and beds of stromatolites in the shallows. Evidence of life but nothing bigger than crustaceans. 
 

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[K^2]

On 1/2/2022 at 11:06 AM, Pthigrivi said:

reefs and beds of stromatolites in the shallows

It's these kinds of ideas that make me hope that whatever setup Intercpet is running for their planet generation, it is flexible enough to mod. Even if Intercept doesn't put any signs of life on Laythe, I would love to see a mod that adds things like stromatolites via the procedural vegetation system.

[Pthigrivi]

34 minutes ago, K^2 said:

It's these kinds of ideas that make me hope that whatever setup Intercpet is running for their planet generation, it is flexible enough to mod. Even if Intercept doesn't put any signs of life on Laythe, I would love to see a mod that adds things like stromatolites via the procedural vegetation system.

Although if we're talking about things that are beyond scope, I'd have to imagine tidal forces capable of heating a whole planet might have other implications. Io bulges 100m from Ap to Pe.

[K^2]

1 minute ago, Pthigrivi said:

Although if we're talking about things that are beyond scope, I'd have to imagine tidal forces capable of heating a whole planet might have other implications. Io bulges 100m from Ap to Pe.

That would probably be very difficult to mod in, unfortunately.

[KCobalt]

Volcanos could also help.

[K^2]

43 minutes ago, KCobalt said:

Volcanos could also help.

Not a whole lot. Volcanos don't generate new energy, just speed up release of thermal energy already on its way out, and that's a limited supply. For earth, geothermal energy is believed to be roughly equally split between radioactive decay and primordial formation energy. So if you were to significantly increase the rate of energy release somehow, this would rapidly cool the core, and that would be kind of bad.

If Laythe had sufficient tidal heating to compensate for reduced thermal flux from the primary, then yes, I would expect it to come with a lot of volcanic activity getting that energy to the surface, but that's a consequence of the tidal effects, and not volcanos themselves directly contributing.

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I thought we were talking about making Laythe MORE realistic?

 

 

 

 

 

[Jacke]

33 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

I thought we were talking about making Laythe MORE realistic?

Indeed.  The most realistic part of "Interstellar" was Hans Zimmer's soundtrack.  The rest was trash with some good scenes.

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

I thought we were talking about making Laythe MORE realistic?

 

 

 

 

 

I remember reading that when earths oceans first formed following the late heavy bombardment the moon was 16x closer and earth’s rotation was much faster, resulting in kilometer high tidal waves moving at near the speed of sound. Laythe is pretty damn close Jool. That wave in interstellar might be an underrepresentation. 
 

Edit: Ah seems the note about early earth is a misconception, that by the time the earth cooled the moon was already 80% as far as it is today, so there were never tidal waves this dramatic. At the same time the gravitational effect on Laythe would be incredibly strong. The earths crust bulges about half a meter due to the moon, and we have average tides about 2.5m. If you were to move the earth to where Io is you could have tides up to half a kilometer high. It would be (relatively) slow on Laythe though, water rushing uphill at .1m/s over the course of half a day.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

in kilometer high tidal waves moving at near the speed of sound

I bet they didn't also include otherwise ankle-deep water on perfectly flat ground everywhere else on the planet, and the wave's ability to move without disturbing that shallow water at all until it's there.