Is this alternate solar system possible?

[Batmanpuncher]

I did some simulations in universe sandbox and the red dwarf (I used one that was 0.635x the mass of the sun) seems to throw moons like aurora out of the orbit of their parent body in placed anywhere closer than 150 au. 

[Findthepin1]

 

For planets like these to even form the way they are, the red dwarf would probably have to be significantly less massive than 0.635 solar masses. 

 

Also, I did that experiment. Vulcan, if the surface lava is connected to the molten inner part, would have a sort of weird plate tectonic "sea ice" setup like this:

On the molten side, the lava oceans are kept heated by the Sun and from below, so the lava in the middle of the sea moves away from the middle from heat expansion. The rock is colder than the lava so it is denser (?). The rock at the coast sags a bit because of the heat making it softer. This lets lava pool over the Rock. The rock cools the lava a bit until the lava solidifies. Then the crust at the coast is thicker than elsewhere, and it sags more. More lava piles on and becomes rock. There will likely be volcanoes on the night side of Vulcan, which may prevent the formation of a large, continuous glacier of whatever materials. However based on this experiment I find it very unlikely that volcanoes will form near the coast of the lava sea because the crust is too thick. Perhaps the near the coast will have grooves like those on Phobos in OTL, except caused by internal convection rather than tidal forces, the effects of which would be long erased from the planet. 

[fredinno]

7 hours ago, Batmanpuncher said:

I did some simulations in universe sandbox and the red dwarf (I used one that was 0.635x the mass of the sun) seems to throw moons like aurora out of the orbit of their parent body in placed anywhere closer than 150 au. 

I think we already decided it should be on a flyby trajectory, so probably 0.7Ly away should be realistic.

7 hours ago, YNM said:

You can always make some improper lagrangian points, especially L3 / L4 / L5. For L4, just make the same orbit but advance the mean anomaly by 60 degrees ( (1/3)*pi radians). For L5, make it 60 degrees later.

L3 is not stable- it actually also has no use IRL.

[fredinno]

Guys? This place is pretty quiet...

[silversliver]

I made the orbital simulations for Aurora.

http://it.tinypic.com/a/5n1wzr/3

Aurora started in a L4 point like said but it did not last long. ( I put it there with the + 60 degrees of mean anomaly as suggested before)

The orbit stabilized in a strange resonance where Aurora pass from an higher than moon orbit and then a lower orbit.

Those are the final orbital parameters:

• the inner orbit is 320.000 km , the outer is 460.000 km.
• the inner orbit is almost perfectly circular, the outer has an eccentricity of 0.06 (same as moon)
• the longitude of ascension node is 125° (same as moon) (for both orbits)
• inclination is 5.16° (same as moon) (for both orbits)
• argument of periapsis varies wildly between orbits, cycling through almost all values
• same for mean anomaly

The mass of the moon has been calculated as 0,0000633x Earth with a density of 3.22 g/cm³  (as you can see from images)

I didn't put much water, so the density is probably even lower.

[fredinno]

46 minutes ago, silversliver said:

I made the orbital simulations for Aurora.

http://it.tinypic.com/a/5n1wzr/3

Aurora started in a L4 point like said but it did not last long. ( I put it there with the + 60 degrees of mean anomaly as suggested before)

The orbit stabilized in a strange resonance where Aurora pass from an higher than moon orbit and then a lower orbit.

Those are the final orbital parameters:

• the inner orbit is 320.000 km , the outer is 460.000 km.
• the inner orbit is almost perfectly circular, the outer has an eccentricity of 0.06 (same as moon)
• the longitude of ascension node is 125° (same as moon) (for both orbits)
• inclination is 5.16° (same as moon) (for both orbits)
• argument of periapsis varies wildly between orbits, cycling through almost all values
• same for mean anomaly

The mass of the moon has been calculated as 0,0000633x Earth with a density of 3.22 g/cm³  (as you can see from images)

I didn't put much water, so the density is probably even lower.

Did you make Luna/Moon and Earth Binary, with proper masses and orbital parameters for both? It does not look like Earth-Moon is Binary, and Binary would make all the difference.

[silversliver]

4 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Did you make Luna/Moon and Earth Binary, with proper masses and orbital parameters for both? It does not look like Earth-Moon is Binary, and Binary would make all the difference.

Yes, I doesn't seems because in this images the camera is fixed on Earth.

The orbital parameters are approximated to the third decimal place.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html

[fredinno]

21 minutes ago, silversliver said:

Yes, I doesn't seems because in this images the camera is fixed on Earth.

The orbital parameters are approximated to the third decimal place.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html

If the 2 objects are binary, they should be orbiting a point outside their collective gravities.  The size of Luna was supposed to be about the size of Mars, I think.

 

If so, all the better. Go with the original plan of of a 2nd moon in a eccentric, inclined orbit.

 

Also, how long did you simulate this? I appreciate you doing it, but as you might expect, longer is better .

[silversliver]

6 minutes ago, fredinno said:

If the 2 objects are binary, they should be orbiting a point outside their collective gravities.  The size of Luna was supposed to be about the size of Mars, I think.

 

If so, all the better. Go with the original plan of of a 2nd moon in a eccentric, inclined orbit.

 

Also, how long did you simulate this? I appreciate you doing it, but as you might expect, longer is better .

The simulation lasted 150 years more than the date in the images , for a total of approximately 200 years, then the program crashed.

I based the simulation an the parameters of the first post, so actually they are the real moon and earth.

Edited December 15, 2015 by silversliver

[ChrisSpace]

I did some simulations in universe sandbox and the red dwarf (I used one that was 0.635x the mass of the sun) seems to throw moons like aurora out of the orbit of their parent body in placed anywhere closer than 150 au.

I was thinking it would be closer to 0.15 solar masses, and much further out.

The size of Luna was supposed to be about the size of Mars, I think.

No! When did I ever say that!?!?!?!?!?!? It's the same size as in OTL!

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, silversliver said:

The simulation lasted 150 years more than the date in the images , for a total of approximately 200 years, then the program crashed.

I based the simulation an the parameters of the first post, so actually they are the real moon and earth.

It is supposed to be much larger, otherwise it would not retain atmoshpere. I thought ChrisSpace and the others already went over this. I guess he forgot. Sorry.

The simulation time is good though.

 

@ChrisSpace? Where are you? We need to discuss this over!

31 minutes ago, ChrisSpace said:

 

 

I was thinking it would be closer to 0.15 solar masses, and much further out.

 

 

No! When did I ever say that!?!?!?!?!?!? It's the same size as in OTL!

No, but it was one of the first things to be called out as unrealistic. Look at page 1 of this thread. The Moon's small gravity means the atmosphere would simply evaporate away, as it is already at escape velocity at the surface of the OTL Moon, even w/o solar wind.

[Guest]

If it were to even exist, it would likely be far outside of the observable universe.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Guest

[ChrisSpace]

24 minutes ago, fredinno said:

No, but it was one of the first things to be called out as unrealistic. Look at page 1 of this thread. The Moon's small gravity means the atmosphere would simply evaporate away, as it is already at escape velocity at the surface of the OTL Moon, even w/o solar wind.

But if it were any larger, the barycenter between Earth and Luna would be outside of Earth. So how could I add a binary planet system if, as a side goal, I'm going to have this as a KSP mod? I mean, I could just move Luna closer to Earth, so the barycenter goes back into Earth, but that would cause more problems.

[fredinno]

1 minute ago, ChrisSpace said:

But if it were any larger, the barycenter between Earth and Luna would be outside of Earth. So how could I add a binary planet system if, as a side goal, I'm going to have this as a KSP mod? I mean, I could just move Luna closer to Earth, so the barycenter goes back into Earth, but that would cause more problems.

Easy! Have them orbiting, say an asteroid, or an easter egg of some sort. Not completely realistic, but close enough.

[ChrisSpace]

Easy! Have them orbiting, say an asteroid, or an easter egg of some sort. Not completely realistic, but close enough.

I have seen that idea before, but in reality it is really flawed. Basically everything outside of LEO, LLO or deep space behaves very unrealistically. There is simply no adequate way of having binary planets without n-body physics, which we'll probably never have. There is one way around this that I can think of: Move Luna much closer to Earth so the barycenter is within the planet, hence making a binary barycenter unnecessary. That would also help with a few plot-related things, but it would open up one massive problem: Months. In OTL Months are based on the orbit of the moon, so if Luna is much closer then either i'll need to invent a new month naming system, or it will have to be based on something other than the moon's orbit (Aurora's?)

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, ChrisSpace said:

 

 

I have seen that idea before, but in reality it is really flawed. Basically everything outside of LEO, LLO or deep space behaves very unrealistically. There is simply no adequate way of having binary planets without n-body physics, which we'll probably never have. There is one way around this that I can think of: Move Luna much closer to Earth so the barycenter is within the planet, hence making a binary barycenter unnecessary. That would also help with a few plot-related things, but it would open up one massive problem: Months. In OTL Months are based on the orbit of the moon, so if Luna is much closer then either i'll need to invent a new month naming system, or it will have to be based on something other than the moon's orbit (Aurora's?)

Would it? The masses are already so similar, the two might just collide over time, it may not even be possible, or the tidal forces may be extreme. KSP is already flawed in physics anyways- the planets are all on rails. 

 

There is not adequate way of creating double planets, or even moons of a planet, with similar mass. Also, deep space refers to everything aside from LEO. You are implying nothing behaves unrealistically.

 

Also, did you read my planetary descriptions on the previous page? Hopefully, it will help you in making the planets.

[ChrisSpace]

9 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Also, did you read my planetary descriptions on the previous page? Hopefully, it will help you in making the planets.

Yes, I did read them, and I added on the bits I liked/could work with.

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

Yes, I did read them, and I added on the bits I liked/could work with.

Ok. Thanks.

 

However, habitable Venus is unlikely as the 3rd planet from the Sun, as Earth is already at the inner edge of it. That's why I had written it after Earth, so that it is behind Earth (but being a super-Earth, and the increased GHGs from that makes Venbus hotter). 

 

Venus might actually still be habitable as the 3rd planet as a "desert planet", which has little water- water is also a Greenhouse Gas (GHG), and is likely one of the reasons Venus turned into the hell-hole it is today.

Edited December 16, 2015 by fredinno

[fredinno]

Juno's sublimating ice is also a very unlikely scenario- especially considering its size, it's EXTREMELY unlikely a comet would be captured by Minivera, as it would likely sublimate off within human timescales.

 

Also, we discussed about Luna and Earth's binaryness and required size increase of Luna.

 

I intended for there to be little land on Laythe, as it is behind the frost line, beyond which massive amounts of ice cling to planets.Therefore, fifty percent of the land being unusable is not really important, since there is so little land to begin with!

 

 

[fredinno]

You also forgot Vulcan's comet-like tail SilverSpace made for Vulcan (it looks cooler, and is also relatively likely, but being unable to simulate it in KSP is a problem)

 

Also, Ceres needs to be many, many, many, many orders of magnitude larger than in OTL to even have an atmosphere- even if it was Mars-sized, it would lack GHGs, as vulcanic activity would have mostly stopped, since it also has no Moon to heat up the core (Mars is an example of this happening.)

I would just give Ceres up. There are already an abundance of habitable planets anyways.

[ChrisSpace]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

However, habitable Venus is unlikely as the 3rd planet from the Sun, as Earth is already at the inner edge of it.

I see what this is. While you're looking at estimates for the edges of the habitable zone, I am actually thinking about the planets themselves, individually, looking at every relevant detail possible to determine how far I can push a planet's characteristics.

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Venus might actually still be habitable as the 3rd planet as a "desert planet", which has little water- water is also a Greenhouse Gas (GHG), and is likely one of the reasons Venus turned into the hell-hole it is today.

What if the ocean coverage was still similar to Earth's, but the oceans were really shallow so the total amount of water is very low? Would that work?

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Juno's sublimating ice is also a very unlikely scenario- especially considering its size, it's EXTREMELY unlikely a comet would be captured by Minivera, as it would likely sublimate off within human timescales.

I'll probably remove Juno entirely.

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Also, we discussed about Luna and Earth's binaryness and required size increase of Luna.

I'm still thinking about this. Perhaps I'll do some calculations on what the smallest size for Luna I can get away with.

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

I intended for there to be little land on Laythe, as it is behind the frost line, beyond which massive amounts of ice cling to planets.Therefore, fifty percent of the land being unusable is not really important, since there is so little land to begin with!

I was thinking Laythe has roughly the same percentage of land coverage as in KSP, perhaps a bit less. And did I ever say the water content of the early solar system was the same as in OTL?

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

You also forgot Vulcan's comet-like tail SilverSpace made for Vulcan (it looks cooler, and is also relatively likely, but being unable to simulate it in KSP is a problem)

I'll mention it when I update the front post. As for KSP, other than looking different, does it make much of a difference?

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

I would just give Ceres up. There are already an abundance of habitable planets anyways.

I was thinking the same thing. My original idea for Ceres was basically what Minerva is, so there's nothing Ceres doesn't have that Minerva doesn't.

[fredinno]

10 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

I see what this is. While you're looking at estimates for the edges of the habitable zone, I am actually thinking about the planets themselves, individually, looking at every relevant detail possible to determine how far I can push a planet's characteristics.

What if the ocean coverage was still similar to Earth's, but the oceans were really shallow so the total amount of water is very low? Would that work?

I'll probably remove Juno entirely.

I'm still thinking about this. Perhaps I'll do some calculations on what the smallest size for Luna I can get away with.

I was thinking Laythe has roughly the same percentage of land coverage as in KSP, perhaps a bit less. And did I ever say the water content of the early solar system was the same as in OTL?

I'll mention it when I update the front post. As for KSP, other than looking different, does it make much of a difference?

I was thinking the same thing. My original idea for Ceres was basically what Minerva is, so there's nothing Ceres doesn't have that Minerva doesn't.

I'll answer/comment on each one at a time, numbered from first to last paragraph.

 

1. So, you're point? 

2. No. Having less water volume would certainly help (along with the fact Venus already is very flat, and would have shallow oceans) but the study that came up with the numbers I gave you showing the possibility of habitable desert planets used a planet with literally no water, aside from in the deepest valleys and oasises (a true desert). I would make Venus like that- leaving a stark contrast between wet and dry in habitable planets in the solar system. There needs to be a little bit of water, though, to wash away CO2.

3. Minerva does not really need one anyways- it can produce a magnetic field on its own.

4. Ok. I still do not get why you are so much against binary systems, though.

5. No, but I think it would be better to keep things simple- the Sun would have to be created from different nebulae dust then, and would have a different location in the galaxy. And I was thinking the same for Laythe in this version, in terms of land coverage, but I would think that the moon would have gravitational locking to Jupiter (like all of its major moons IRL), and so the land would all be in a thin strip around the equator.

6. Not really, in terms of KSP, but you might want to add an extra biome "In Vulcan's tail." 

7. Me too.

[fredinno]

Quote

I made some climate simulation for Venus.

Basically I reduced it's atmosphere to 10 times less than earth(5.1 x 10¹⁸ kg =>5.1 x 10¹⁷  kg) and this accordingly reduced pressure to 0.0963 atm (a little less than Earth/10).

Problem is that humans can't tolerate pressures so low, and I don't know about other life forms.

So the only way to have an habitable atmosphere is to increase pressure to around 0.2 atm that would be barely survivable for humans.

But this in turn would make the surface temperature to rise from 63,5° to around 74-75°.

In the first case you can have lot of water, except on equatorial zones, in the second case you can have small "seas" or very large lakes like the Black Sea OTL. 

There are supposed to be literally almost no water- the largest water bodies being large lakes.

 

One last thing- about the diseases weakening the Maritans, it would make more sense if the diseases were GMO, or if it is thought Maritans clonized Earth, before turning inward, and becoming the society I mentioned in my previous post. Technologies were lost, as the colonists lost connections with the Maritans, and as they lost support,  and as an ice age approached, the colonists were forced to concentrate more on survival. After the ice age, all the technology brought over is lost, or at least the archived information is impossible to read, due to being impossible to translate. That way, the Maritians may be suspect able to diseases from Earth, if the diseases themselves were adapted to the descendants of Martians. 

 

Also, it is best to weaken the Maritans, not destroy them, so they can still pose a significant risk to Earthlings (for storyline purposes) and they produce a cure/vaccine relatively quickly following the initial die off.

 

ALSO: Minevera not having a large moon would mean its axis would shift quite a bit over time. Not good for my version, since I want Minevera to stay on its 0 Degrees Axis. Also, it will likely have to be a little bigger, to generate more heat.

Edited December 16, 2015 by fredinno

[silversliver]

I made some climate simulation for Venus.

Basically I reduced it's atmosphere to 10 times less than earth(5.1 x 10¹⁸ kg =>5.1 x 10¹⁷  kg) and this accordingly reduced pressure to 0.0963 atm (a little less than Earth/10).

Problem is that humans can't tolerate pressures so low, and I don't know about other life forms.

So the only way to have an habitable atmosphere is to increase pressure to around 0.2 atm that would be barely survivable for humans.

But this in turn would make the surface temperature to rise from 63,5° to around 74-75°.

In the first case you can have lot of water, except on equatorial zones, in the second case you can have small "seas" or very large lakes like the Black Sea OTL. 

[waterlubber]

Why not replace the Moon with a trojan moon? It may be fairly easy to access if the orbits are right.