Did Minmus once have a ocean?

[Nerbal The Second]

So, if you have the breaking ground DLC there are big rocks called Olivine formation, when you use the scanner, it says this. "An Olive Formation jutting out from a salty flat on a low gravity moon with no atmosphere? more impossible evidence that Minmus may have once had an ocean." The flats of Minmus also look like a frozen ocean, so I believe that Minmus once had a atmosphere and a ocean.

 

[Gargamel]

As this is about the game and not real life, moved to KSP discussion. 

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, Nerbal The Second said:

So, if you have the breaking ground DLC there are big rocks called Olivine formation, when you use the scanner, it says this. "An Olive Formation jutting out from a salty flat on a low gravity moon with no atmosphere? more impossible evidence that Minmus may have once had an ocean." The flats of Minmus also look like a frozen ocean, so I believe that Minmus once had a atmosphere and a ocean.

 

You can have flats on a moon in two ways. Liquid water that froze or evaporated, or liquid rock that froze. Our very own Moon has seas (maria) that formed from massive asteroid impacts which melted the surface; the molten rock formed an ocean and then solidified into flats.

The question would be whether the flats on Minmus appear to have been melt from impact craters or not. I suspect they are not. In addition, the Kerbin system is quite close to the sun and so a salt-flat origin is pretty strong.

[Nerbal The Second]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

As this is about the game and not real life, moved to KSP discussion. 

I'm sorry Gargamel, I'm new to this forum stuff I will make sure to put it in discussions next time.

[Vanamonde]

15 minutes ago, Nerbal The Second said:

I'm sorry Gargamel, I'm new to this forum stuff I will make sure to put it in discussions next time.

No need to apologize. We just like to keep things organized.

[Nerbal The Second]

12 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

You can have flats on a moon in two ways. Liquid water that froze or evaporated, or liquid rock that froze. Our very own Moon has seas (maria) that formed from massive asteroid impacts which melted the surface; the molten rock formed an ocean and then solidified into flats.

The question would be whether the flats on Minmus appear to have been melt from impact craters or not. I suspect they are not. In addition, the Kerbin system is quite close to the sun and so a salt-flat origin is pretty strong.

So, the flats were formed by evaporation water?

[OHara]

1 hour ago, Nerbal The Second said:

So, the flats were formed by evaporation water?

That makes sense to me. 
The flats could easily be salt flats, left behind from an evaporated ocean.  Maybe instead of sodium chloride, the 'salt' could be menthol to fit with some of the EVA reports referencing mint ice cream  (or some in-game text; I cannot remember exactly where mint ice-cream was mentioned).

There are a few reasonable possibilities, though.   The people developing the follow-on game, KSP2, talked about Minmus having been hotter, and the flats being molten and then solidified rock.

We talked about the possibilities here (thread link)  The one thing that doesn't seem to make sense is simple water ice in the flats, because water-ice evaporates, and Minmus' gravity is to weak to trap the evaporated vapour,  so ice flats would not last very long.

[Nerbal The Second]

8 minutes ago, OHara said:

There are a few reasonable possibilities, though.   The people developing the follow-on game, KSP2, talked about Minmus having been hotter, and the flats being molten and then solidified rock.

There isn't any Olivine on the flats but there is green sandstone, green sandstone forms when Anoxic marine zones have a lot of organic waste, this tells us that the flats where probably underwater at some points, but we also can find green sandstone on the hills of Minmus. Olivine in RL is found in Earth's upper mantel, this supports the idea of Minmus having an active inside which could've created a magnetic field which could've allowed Minmus to have an atmosphere the green sandstone also shows us that Minmus had life possibly.

Ksp 2's Idea of it being cooled rock could also be right the Green sandstone and the Olivine could've been from Kerbin and the flats could be Marina's.

[Nerbal The Second]

I found evidence that proves the Minmus flats are salt flats. when you do an analysis of the green sandstone.

Here is a link to the image https://1drv.ms/u/s!AichGTQO8KnRgT1Q4IsnlvwCcYLX?e=kBdK53

1 minute ago, Nerbal The Second said:

I found evidence that proves the Minmus flats are salt flats. when you do an analysis of the green sandstone.

Here is a link to the image https://1drv.ms/u/s!AichGTQO8KnRgT1Q4IsnlvwCcYLX?e=kBdK53

This shows that the flats are mostly likely the dry ocean floor of Minmus.

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

23 hours ago, Nerbal The Second said:

So, if you have the breaking ground DLC there are big rocks called Olivine formation, when you use the scanner, it says this. "An Olive Formation jutting out from a salty flat on a low gravity moon with no atmosphere? more impossible evidence that Minmus may have once had an ocean." The flats of Minmus also look like a frozen ocean, so I believe that Minmus once had a atmosphere and a ocean.

 

Well, technically in regular KSP, Minmus was made of ice but now the new standard is that Minmus is now made out of glass (at least in KSP2 it is) as its literally impossible for minmus to be completely made of ice at such close range to Kerbol (the sun). And i don't think Minmus ever had an atmosphere because im pretty sure there is no magnetic field around Minmus to protect its atmosphere from being blasted away but maybe im wrong.?

21 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

No need to apologize. We just like to keep things organized.

how come every single moderator has 100 times more reputation points than me... i wonder if theres people that spam like everything... 

Edited January 11, 2022 by DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE

[DDE]

11 hours ago, DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE said:

how come every single moderator has 100 times more reputation points than me... i wonder if theres people that spam like everything... 

Moderators generally get a big round of applause and likes each time they intervene on some dumpster fire.

Other than that, post in the relatively quiet and uncontroversial Science and Spaceflight Subforum, get yourself known by a couple of rocket bloggers

oh, and don't forget having been here since v0.25,  before the beta, before planetary biomes, before Valentina, crew specialties, most of the Mk 3 parts, back when flying sideways made no difference with regards to drag...

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

On 1/11/2022 at 9:50 AM, DDE said:

Moderators generally get a big round of applause and likes each time they intervene on some dumpster fire.

Other than that, post in the relatively quiet and uncontroversial Science and Spaceflight Subforum, get yourself known by a couple of rocket bloggers

oh, and don't forget having been here since v0.25,  before the beta, before planetary biomes, before Valentina, crew specialties, most of the Mk 3 parts, back when flying sideways made no difference with regards to drag...

lmao that's funny

i got dumpstered twice in my history too.