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A ninth planet?

Spaceception

By Spaceception
in Science & Spaceflight

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K^2

K^2

Posted
Posted
10 minutes ago, RuBisCO said:

Is it not 10 times earth mass or greater?

It is. But if it's the Fifth Giant, we are likely looking on the smaller end of that estimate. So it'd still be the smallest of the Ice Giants.

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RuBisCO

RuBisCO

Posted
Posted
25 minutes ago, Nothalogh said:

Nothing radical about it.

The hard part is the structure, and any country that can build a blue water submarine can do that.

The only radical thing involved with the whole endeavor would be effect it would have on space access

It is radical in that I and most people won't believe it works until we see it fly.

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Nothalogh

Nothalogh

Posted
Posted
Just now, RuBisCO said:

yeah sure, I will believe that is so, when I see it fly.

There are no engineering problems involved that haven't been solved elsewhere many times over, it's not like this is a Zubrin NSWR or something with inherent instability like Single H

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RuBisCO

RuBisCO

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, Nothalogh said:

There are no engineering problems involved that haven't been solved elsewhere many times over, it's not like this is a Zubrin NSWR or something with inherent instability like Single H

Yeah sure, again make it work and I'll believe you. 

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AccidentsHappen

AccidentsHappen

Posted
Posted
Just now, legoclone09 said:

I'd say something completely different because it is insanely far out, what if it's just a literal ball of ice? That would be insane.

Wow, I didn't even think of that. Would you classify that as "semi-terrestrial" or "super-dense-comet-10-times-the-size-of-Earth"? I was thinking in the direction of a Gas Giant devoid of internal heat, and so cold that parts of its atmosphere have condensed, frozen and fallen, compacting at the planets core and creating a "surface". I'm really not sure, but I love the theories.:D

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legoclone09

legoclone09

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, AccidentsHappen said:

Wow, I didn't even think of that. Would you classify that as "semi-terrestrial" or "super-dense-comet-10-times-the-size-of-Earth"? I was thinking in the direction of a Gas Giant devoid of internal heat, and so cold that parts of its atmosphere have condensed, frozen and fallen, compacting at the planets core and creating a "surface". I'm really not sure, but I love the theories.:D

What if it had internal heating but it collapsed into a huge ocean of liquid water? That would be AWESOME!

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AccidentsHappen

AccidentsHappen

Posted
Posted

I've heard theories that it isn't a planet at all, and is really a brown dwarf. I think it's pretty far fetched, but who knows? Certainly not me, I just make theories!:D

1 minute ago, legoclone09 said:

What if it had internal heating but it collapsed into a huge ocean of liquid water? That would be AWESOME!

SO TRUE! But it would have get denser and denser till the liquid became solid, otherwise it wouldn't be a planet.:cool:

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legoclone09

legoclone09

Posted
Posted
31 minutes ago, AccidentsHappen said:

I've heard theories that it isn't a planet at all, and is really a brown dwarf. I think it's pretty far fetched, but who knows? Certainly not me, I just make theories!:D

SO TRUE! But it would have get denser and denser till the liquid became solid, otherwise it wouldn't be a planet.:cool:

Why not call it a liqanet? Like a liquid-planet combo.

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K^2

K^2

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, AccidentsHappen said:

Wow, I didn't even think of that. Would you classify that as "semi-terrestrial" or "super-dense-comet-10-times-the-size-of-Earth"? I was thinking in the direction of a Gas Giant devoid of internal heat, and so cold that parts of its atmosphere have condensed, frozen and fallen, compacting at the planets core and creating a "surface". I'm really not sure, but I love the theories.:D

That's not possible. It's too large to have lost its Hydrogen, which basically guarantees a substantial atmosphere and either liquid on its surface or slush of various ices. Either way, it'd be nothing like a comet.

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fredinno

fredinno

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, AccidentsHappen said:

I've heard theories that it isn't a planet at all, and is really a brown dwarf. I think it's pretty far fetched, but who knows? Certainly not me, I just make theories!:D

SO TRUE! But it would have get denser and denser till the liquid became solid, otherwise it wouldn't be a planet.:cool:

A brown dwarf is not possible. WISE looked in the same region for brown dwarfs and gas giants larger than Saturn, and it couldn't find anything.

Edited by fredinno
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K^2

K^2

Posted
Posted (edited)
17 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

I voted terrestrial, mainly for I was a bit disappointed that it's a gas giant in the Planet Nine Challenge. I wanted to land there! :P

(not that I managed to build a craft that can even do a flyby, not to mention an orbit)

It'd be a total speculation, and pushing the plausible range from the data so far, but for a KSP mod, it'd be fun to build an ice Super-Earth version of Nine. 10M⊕ is right there at the edge of Super-Earth definition, but in principle, this could allow for a hard surface made up primarily of Methane ice, with lakes of liquid Hydrogen and a Hydrogen-Helium atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure would be within a few bar limit, and surface gravity would be within tolerable for a landing. I'd also throw in a few moons. Could make for some really interesting challenges, and it'd be different.

Edit: So here are some numbers to go along with that. Assuming Nine has a rocky core, but still covered by a lot of ice, I would guess that it'd be rather dense for an ice giant, and rather fluffy for a rocky world. So I went with 3g/cm³. That might be a little high, but we're stretching things here to make it fun for the game. That puts radius at a little under 17,000km. Almost 3x the Earth's. The neat thing about that is that the surface gravity, ends up being mere 13.8m/s². About 40% higher than Earth's! You'd be able to survive on that world, provided sufficient heat insulation. The orbital velocity would be rather high, at about 15km/s, which is about twice that for Earth, but it's nothing insane. Finally, the atmosphere. Depending on typical temperature, it could be anywhere from 1 to 10 bar. On the plus side, scale height should be comparatively small, making it a little easier to escape.

Scaling that to KSP, I'd do basically the same thing they did with Kerbin. Take radius at 1/10th and keep the surface gravity. That would put radius of KSP Nine at 1,700km and surface gravity at 1.4g. That puts orbital velocity in KSP at 4,834 m/s. Then I would set surface pressure at 4 atm and scale height at 4km. That will make ascent from Nine about as challenging as ascent from Eve, especially since there won't be any significant mountains on the surface to help you along.

Edited by K^2
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