Kerbin is really dense

[JP_Magoo]

As we all know, Kerbin is 10 times smaller than earth, and to simulate the same gravity it must be 10 times as dense. That means Kerbin's density is about 55 grams per centimeter cubed (this does check out with the wiki.) And the density of osmium (the densest element) is only 22 grams per centimeter cubed!  What is Kerbin made out of!!! 

[swjr-swis]

The entire upper crust of Kerbin consists of highly compacted kerbal and craft remains dropped from the skies, after aeons of constantly trying to get to orbit.

Iow: Kerbin is quite literally made out of compacted Kerbal droppings...

(just one theory)

[KSK]

1 hour ago, JP_Magoo said:

As we all know, Kerbin is 10 times smaller than earth, and to simulate the same gravity it must be 10 times as dense. That means Kerbin's density is about 55 grams per centimeter cubed (this does check out with the wiki.) And the density of osmium (the densest element) is only 22 grams per centimeter cubed!  What is Kerbin made out of!!! 

Kerbal scientists have long debated whether Kerbin is made of pure fudgium or an alloy of fudgium, compromisium and gameplaybalancium.

[John FX]

Actually most of Kerbin is matter of a density we would accept as very normal. There is a very small core made from a small piece of neutron star which is actually the remnants of an old star that got captured by The Sun, which is as far as I know still the official name for the star at the centre of the system. Most of Kerbin is normal density, except for the little bit in the middle which is very very very very dense.

This is why rockets made out of matter from the mantle behave like our rockets, instead of being 10 times heavier.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, John FX said:

the official name for the star at the centre of the system

is Kerbol.

Otherwise good science all around.

[JP_Magoo]

4 hours ago, John FX said:

Actually most of Kerbin is matter of a density we would accept as very normal. There is a very small core made from a small piece of neutron star which is actually the remnants of an old star that got captured by The Sun, which is as far as I know still the official name for the star at the centre of the system. Most of Kerbin is normal density, except for the little bit in the middle which is very very very very dense.

This is why rockets made out of matter from the mantle behave like our rockets, instead of being 10 times heavier.

if there was a neutron start in the middle, does't not this mean that the affect of gravity would be a lot different than earth? 

[Geonovast]

7 hours ago, JP_Magoo said:

Kerbin is really dense

That's not very nice.  It's trying really hard.  Maybe you just don't understand it.

Edited February 8, 2018 by Geonovast

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, JP_Magoo said:

if there was a neutron start in the middle, does't not this mean that the affect of gravity would be a lot different than earth? 

No it wouldn't. If the Earth was a hollow sphere with an Earth-mass black hole at the centre, you wouldn't notice any difference at the surface.

[KerikBalm]

Play a 3x rescale, now you can assume an Osmium core and a "normal" surface.

[swjr-swis]

1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:

If the Earth was a hollow sphere with an Earth-mass black hole at the centre, you wouldn't notice any difference at the surface.

Drilling for oil may have unexpected results though.

(Picturing the planet suddenly shooting away and flying in random patterns across the solar system as it slowly deflates )

[Geonovast]

1 minute ago, swjr-swis said:

Drilling for oil may have unexpected results though.

(Picturing the planet suddenly shooting away and flying in random patterns across the solar system as it slowly deflates )

http://theinfosphere.org/Vergon_6

[John FX]

6 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

is Kerbol.

Otherwise good science all around.

"It is however extremely important to note that the celestial body is called "The Sun" in the English game, and "Sun" in the game files. There is no such thing as Kerbol outside of the community forums and wiki."

 

[swjr-swis]

15 minutes ago, John FX said:

"It is however extremely important to note that the celestial body is called "The Sun" in the English game, and "Sun" in the game files. There is no such thing as Kerbol outside of the community forums and wiki."

I think it's way past putting that one back into the bottle...

 

Spoiler

On 2/25/2017 at 1:01 AM, SQUAD said:

We’re talking of course about the TRAPPIST-1 system, which not only has an interesting resemblance to the Kerbol system

On 10/11/2016 at 11:38 PM, SQUAD said:

Kerbals hit a milestone, they are now interconnected and they can hear you Loud and Clear! Let your imagination fly with new possibilities, build communication networks, control vehicles remotely and explore every inch of the Kerbol System in ways that weren’t possible before with this new update!

On 8/21/2015 at 9:02 PM, SQUAD said:

Ike eclipsing Kerbol on Duna by justidutch..

On 11/5/2013 at 12:53 PM, SQUAD said:

This efficient mod will provide you with an indepth set of mapping tools to scan every body in the Kerbol system and provide you with an accurate map of them. Grab it today!

Note the text in this official launch trailer, at 00:55:

On 12/1/2016 at 9:36 PM, UomoCapra said:

Surprisingly, Kerbin’s position and tilt in relation to Kerbol makes it very similar with planet Earth

Quote

"Let your imagination fly with new possibilities, build communication networks, control vehicles remotely and explore every inch of the Kerbol System in ways that weren’t possible before with this new update!"

On 11/10/2017 at 11:20 PM, SQUAD said:

Maybe Oumuamua will pass through the Kerbol System next, and Kerbals will be able to capture it… who knows. In the meantime we can continue to learn about KSP development.

On 8/7/2017 at 10:00 PM, SQUAD said:

Here is an interesting mod that adds atmospheres to those planets and moons which don’t have atmospheres of the kerbol system! Check it out

On 7/7/2017 at 10:23 PM, SQUAD said:

This time around, the challenge consists of visiting the exotic sights of the Kerbol System with self-made vessel that can go as far as possible, with the lowest part-count possible.

 

 

[klesh]

1 hour ago, John FX said:

"It is however extremely important to note that the celestial body is called "The Sun" in the English game, and "Sun" in the game files. There is no such thing as Kerbol outside of the community forums and wiki."

 

Community forums, wiki, and Squad's latest release video:

 

I asked about this in the release thread which features the video, but no one from Squad chose to reply:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by klesh
Apparently I should've expanded swjr-swis' spoiler.

[RatchetinSpace]

The gravitational constant in the Kerbal universe is way higher than it is in our universe. 

[Starman4308]

19 minutes ago, RatchetinSpace said:

The gravitational constant in the Kerbal universe is way higher than it is in our universe. 

When it comes to how things are in the code, I believe KSP uses the same universal gravitational constant G as the real universe: it's that the planets really are ridiculously dense.

Granted, you could handwave it as a difference in units used, that a "kilogram" in KSP isn't a real-world kilogram. Of course, then you have to explain the density of rocket parts (though some things like liquid fuel and oxidizer are way too dense to have any real-world analogue, so...).

[Snark]

14 hours ago, RatchetinSpace said:

The gravitational constant in the Kerbal universe is way higher than it is in our universe. 

Actually, the math says otherwise.  You can look at the actual numbers for the various planets in the "info" pane in map view, and they give the mass in kilograms, and it's quite clear that they're using the same gravitational constant as in our universe.  The planets are simply way, way denser than here.

[wumpus]

On 2/8/2018 at 4:36 AM, John FX said:

Actually most of Kerbin is matter of a density we would accept as very normal. There is a very small core made from a small piece of neutron star which is actually the remnants of an old star that got captured by The Sun, which is as far as I know still the official name for the star at the centre of the system. Most of Kerbin is normal density, except for the little bit in the middle which is very very very very dense.

This is why rockets made out of matter from the mantle behave like our rockets, instead of being 10 times heavier.

The rockets [well, liquid engines and their tanks] still have really bad mass ratio " (too heavy by a factor of 3 to 8)*".  This is either poor kerbal engineering or simply more dense ore.

* according to "False KSP lessons" on the RSS/RO webpage.

[John FX]

8 hours ago, wumpus said:

The rockets [well, liquid engines and their tanks] still have really bad mass ratio " (too heavy by a factor of 3 to 8)*".  This is either poor kerbal engineering or simply more dense ore.

* according to "False KSP lessons" on the RSS/RO webpage.

Ah, maybe they delved too greedily and too deep, and ended up with ore that was too heavy. Jeb's bane.

[Bill Phil]

Yeah. A black hole "core" and some method of suspending the surface of the planet would explain it...

Although, in truth, there's a lot wrong gravitationally with the whole solar system, more than just mass. Things like how the Jool system is unstable, and that Duna and Ike would be a binary system. 

[samstarman5]

20 hours ago, John FX said:

Ah, maybe they delved too greedily and too deep, and ended up with ore that was too heavy. Jeb's bane.

Silly. Jeb's Bane is sitting in the cockpit on the launchpad doing absolutely nothing and being told to do absolutely nothing.

[John FX]

7 hours ago, samstarman5 said:

Silly. Jeb's Bane is sitting in the cockpit on the launchpad doing absolutely nothing and being told to do absolutely nothing.

I take it you have not read The Lord of the RIngs...

[Archgeek]

A black hole seems a little much, and would be small enough its evaporation would be violently irradiating the heck out of Kerbin's outer core, making the world increasingly volcanic as the hawking radiation intesifies.

The density of neutron-degenerate matter comes to 4.0 × 10¹⁴ g/cm³ , which is a good 13 orders of magnitude over that of Osmium.  Perhaps Kerbin has a tiny core made from the ember of a long dead star?  Well, troublingly, neutron stars (and any blob of neutron-degenerate matter) under .14 solar masses tends to explode.  The good news is kerbin, with a radius of around 636.7km has a volume of 1.081 x 10²⁴ cm³ to the needed 1.392 x 10¹⁷ cm³ needed to house the neutronium, so there's room for it.  The bad news is, taking GM/r^2 with M of .14 solar masses gets you thousands of g's even at Earth's surface.  On Kerbin, g would be a nightmarish 4.582 x 10⁸ m/s², dramatically overshooting our density target.

I'm calling Insane Wizard on this one, so let's see how much neutron-degenerate matter our mad magus would need  to constrain at Kerbin's core to make this work:  M = r²g/G, which using 9.81 and Kerbin's radius nets us 5.96 x 10²² kg, or 29.97 x 10^-9 solar masses.... it really wants to explode.  Worse, it's slightly less, as we have to leave some mass budget for the rest of the 1.081 x 10²⁴ cm³ of Kerbin's volume, probably some kind of light rock.

Our crazed caster might've also taken an easier route (easier in terms of not having hold back the electron-degeneracy pressure with an enormous permanent force-cage) and gone with a volume of electron-degenerate matter instead, as found in white dwarf stars.  It's got a density of around 10000kg/cm³, and so would take up a good 5.69 x 10¹⁸ cm³ of Kerbin's volume.  Still consuming a tiny fraction of the space available, but a lot bigger than the neutron-degenerate core, even bigger than the .14 solar mass one that would crush everything.

So, I'd say an insane wizard did it, pulling a goodly amount of electron-degenerate matter from a dead star, and putting it at Kerbin's core to make the surface gravity 9.81m/s².

[samstarman5]

14 hours ago, John FX said:

I take it you have not read The Lord of the RIngs...

I have, as a matter of fact. Doesn't change what I stated. Maybe you should read up the definition of bane before making assumptions.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, samstarman5 said:

I have, as a matter of fact. Doesn't change what I stated. Maybe you should read up the definition of bane before making assumptions.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Durin's_Bane