A tidally locked planet.

[greenville]

On 1/8/2023 at 11:49 PM, Drakenred65 said:

I don’t think it’s stated anywhere.

 

that said how a planet or moon gets tidally locked is it’s close enough to its primary that tidal forces caused by the gravity slows its rotation until only one side faces it.

 

Given that it takes both  time and some luck ( Mercury has a 3:2 resonance with the sun because of its orbit, and that’s not likely to change any time before it’s engulfed by the sun) and nothing else in the solar system is tidally locked to the sun, I find it kind of unlikely you will find a tidally locked planet with a habitable zone outside of sci fi.

 

Granted this is KSP so who knows.

A red dwarf star is so small that it would be possible

[kspnerd122]

Except red dwarfs are the WORST places for habitable planets, here are the issues with them

1. Planets must be very close to the star, this leads to tidal locking(which alone isnt harmful, however the side effects are) namely, nasty winds and a high probability that all your water gets stuck on the space-facing night side

2. Red dwarfs flare, a lot, and many of them are highly variable in their output, for example, proxima centauri can regularly get enough sunspots to dim its brightness by half, or have long flaring episodes that make it 5 times brighter. 

3. Planets being close + tons of stellar flaring is the exact thing that tends to strip off atmospheres, and quickly too, imagine if the sun just randomly got 5 times brighter(and hotter) for a few weeks and you see the problem, this is enough to outright boil the oceans

4. planets need to get a lot closer to stay warm and that luminosity drops off a lot faster than mass, so orbital velocities will be very high (for a given level of insolation), leading to higher velocities of impactors (asteroids)

In general, red dwarfs are a pretty nasty star type, so Id say avoid putting this type of plannet in

[Bej Kerman]

14 hours ago, kspnerd122 said:

In general, red dwarfs are a pretty nasty star type, so Id say avoid putting this type of plannet in

Before, you were complaining about the idea of habitable planets. Wouldn't you want this, if anything?

I know I want a colony under a star that regularly fluctuates in brightness.

 

[kspnerd122]

12 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Before, you were complaining about the idea of habitable planets. Wouldn't you want this, if anything?

I know I want a colony under a star that regularly fluctuates in brightness.

 

I was mainly calling out the fact that the OP wanting a habitable one is unlikely and to me unrealistic

I would LOVE the idea of fluctuating brightness and stellar flares, tidally locked planets also provide a GREAT place to generate power, cover the dayside in solar arrays, or tap the temperature difference between the hemispheres for energy in terms of wind power(wind would blow CONSTANTLY there) 

Tidally locked planets, especially hellworlds, are some of my favorite places in KSP to colonize due to the easy power supply yet being difficult to truly exploit