Gas planet two

[spyker92]

There was some hints awhile back that suggested that they had various test planets ready to go. But they were never implemented due to performance / engine concerns. Most of which have been tackled by now.

I actually think adding another planet is a good idea, despite the fact that so much is incomplete. GP2 will allow them to implement a planet with a different axis of rotation and the resulting tests on the engine will be understood for longer term use. A series of moons could also be immediately implemented as well to test various other things with the community, such as low orbital moons, a retrograd-revolution-moon (could even have a dense atmosphere like eve) could all be interesting additions, and used to test difficulty / engine capability.

Hope tradition continues for xmas though, and we see at least a small new addition to the solar family.

[FITorion]

They've also said that they won't be adding any until they get the system to discover them in place. Something about building a telescope... or some such thing in order to learn of the new planets existence and have it appear in the map view.

[EliteShadowLeo]

Really hope they add an asteroid belt of sorts sometime in the near future GPT 2 sounds awesome too!

[Dooz]

Well heres a teaser image of GP2

And a modder experimenting with rings

[Skyrunner27]

What if they already added it for us to discover?!

[SuperWeegee4000]

Is this it?

Yes, that's it.

Also, thanks for two pages of posts while I was asleep.

[Scotius]

Well heres a teaser image of GP2

And a modder experimenting with rings

Well, it's a bit disappointing for me. I was hoping for more colours and interesting cloud formations Out of our own gas giants Jupiter and Saturn are more interesting visually, and Neptune is blue

[Deadweasel]

The visuals are only one potential aspect. What if it had a solid surface on which to land, but had incredibly high winds, or extremely thick fog? It could be the one world that REQUIRED IVA flight to land on, so you could watch the radar altimeter. Or they could implement something like the Kethane mapsat so you'd need to deploy a probe to scan for landing sites before you actually sent a manned mission there. Little touches like that would start making the game feel like there were real reasons to have probes and power and satellite dishes etc.

[Iron4venger]

Jupiter and Saturn are more interesting visually

Saturn is totally boring to look at, the "only" feat is the ring system. But that alone make it for a jewel in our System.

I like the idea of heavy winds and the like.

[Thogapotomus]

I think it would also be interesting if they had a captured rogue planet in a polar orbit arount kerbol. You'd have to slingshot off jool to match its inclanation. Or maybe a large comet or something of the sort.

[The Fog]

Rings?! For sure?!

That'll be super cool! I can't wait to crash something into it take samples from it.

[KvickFlygarn87]

As my ribbons show, I've done it.

Well, your ribbons also say you've gotten a synchronous Mun orbit, which is impossible. That kind of thing annoys me, why say you've done something when it's really not possible?

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

Well, your ribbons also say you've gotten a synchronous Mun orbit, which is impossible. That kind of thing annoys me, why say you've done something when it's really not possible?

I believe a semi-synchronous orbit is perfectly possible. Where for every time you go around, the mun goes around exactly 1/2

[Spatzimaus]

Well, your ribbons also say you've gotten a synchronous Mun orbit

Two things.

First, no, my ribbons most definitely do NOT say I've achieved a synchronous Mun orbit. The only Overwatch Dot I have is for Gilly, because by sheer accident I ended up with a mapping satellite in a perfect geosynch orbit there. What you're probably getting confused by is the part of the equatorial orbit bar that peeks to the right of the planet icon, but if you compare to the Gilly ribbon you can clearly tell the difference between that artifact and an actual Overwatch Dot.

(For reference, my Mun ribbon is Orbit + Equatorial + Polar + Rendezvous on the left, the "Kerbal Lost" stripe in the middle, and Aircraft + Return on the right. It's slightly out of date, as I should add Land Navigation and Anomaly, but it's not worth re-generating.)

Second, if you actually read the rules for the ribbons, you CAN get the Overwatch Dot by having a specially-placed network of satellites that guarantee coverage of a specific location. Technically I could claim that dot for Kerbin, since I'd placed a full constellation of mapping satellites in a previous version, but I never really liked that definition too much so I didn't bother. If you're upset about people who DO claim an Overwatch Dot for Mun (and it's not just because you didn't pay close enough attention to the previous point), it might be because they placed multiple satellites in a common orbit, instead of trying to put a single satellite in a synchronous orbit.

And back to the original point of the post you were referring to, Eeloo is BORING compared to the other planets. It's got very little in terms of elevation changes, with only one big mountainous area and a few scattered hills elsewhere; most of the planet is just flat, barring those few shallow canyons. Its lack of craters is simply impossible for a planet, but as others have mentioned, this sort of thing is fairly typical of large moons around gas giants, so Eeloo's appearance is ideal for a moon. In fact, it looks a LOT like a cross between Miranda (with its linear canyons) and Enceladus, especially if they make it cryovolcanic in a future update.

This is part of why I was saying that, at present, it's a one-'n-done sort of destination. You go there, land once, take your measurements, and then you have no reason to go back again. Moho's in a similar situation for difficulty, but at least that's a difficult planet to land on (although not nearly as bad as back when it had an atmosphere). And if you just want a place to drive a rover for fun, Mun's got nearly identical gravity and now has much more interesting terrain to work with.

By moving it to be a moon of a gas giant, they make it a much more desirable destination, as a trip there can involve stops at the other moons of that body. You'll want to set up fuel depots and such around the gas giant, and that means more things to do there. (Think about it the other way; if Bop or Vall was in a Dres-type orbit instead of being a moon of Jool, would you go there as often?)

Edited October 28, 2013 by Spatzimaus

[MatzahMan]

A cool planet to add, even if it has no real world equivalent, would be a planet/captured asteroid in a polar orbit. All of the plane changes from Kerbin's orbit would be expensive and challenging. To make it even more difficult, the planet could have a periapsis around Moho's orbit and an apoapsis around Eeloo's. This drastic change in velocity would make it challenging to estimate how much to lead the planet in its orbit.

[Spatzimaus]

A cool planet to add, even if it has no real world equivalent, would be a planet/captured asteroid in a polar orbit.

There was a good thread on this a while back, proposing this exact sort of thing. The problem was just that it was way too tough in practice. If I remember right, someone used HyperEdit to put a planet into a highly inclined orbit, although IIRC it was a circular orbit near Kerbin's radius. The ridiculous amount of delta-V needed to match orbits made it nearly impossible to reach, though; if you didn't incline your orbit to match it you'd enter its SOI with far too much relative velocity to slow into an orbit, and inclining to match it beforehand would take a ridiculous amount of fuel unless your ship was all ions.

Frankly, I'd hope they wouldn't do this for Kerbin's system, and would save it for neighboring systems if they ever get around to adding FTL. In the meantime, I'd just like them to incline ANYTHING ELSE; many planets and moons in KSP might have orbits tilted relative to the ecliptic, but none of the planets seem to have any kind of axial tilt, and most of the moons are aligned with the ecliptic as well. (The exceptions being Minmus, Gilly, and one of Jool's moons). I mean really, there's a topic on the front page of this forum talking about how Mun was eclipsing something in Kerbin orbit, which happens once per month in KSP and far, far less often in the real world.

[Pigbear]

There was a good thread on this a while back, proposing this exact sort of thing. The problem was just that it was way too tough in practice. If I remember right, someone used HyperEdit to put a planet into a highly inclined orbit, although IIRC it was a circular orbit near Kerbin's radius. The ridiculous amount of delta-V needed to match orbits made it nearly impossible to reach, though; if you didn't incline your orbit to match it you'd enter its SOI with far too much relative velocity to slow into an orbit, and inclining to match it beforehand would take a ridiculous amount of fuel unless your ship was all ions.

Frankly, I'd hope they wouldn't do this for Kerbin's system, and would save it for neighboring systems if they ever get around to adding FTL. In the meantime, I'd just like them to incline ANYTHING ELSE; many planets and moons in KSP might have orbits tilted relative to the ecliptic, but none of the planets seem to have any kind of axial tilt, and most of the moons are aligned with the ecliptic as well. (The exceptions being Minmus, Gilly, and one of Jool's moons). I mean really, there's a topic on the front page of this forum talking about how Mun was eclipsing something in Kerbin orbit, which happens once per month in KSP and far, far less often in the real world.

that wasn't hyperedit. that was a new planet.

[KvickFlygarn87]

Spatzimaus:

Oops, sorry. I didn't read the rules for the ribbons too closely. Also, I thought that was the overwatch dot on the mun.

Sorry!

[lazarus1024]

A hot jupiter would make no sense whatsoever. Hot Jupiters tend to throw all the inner planets into deep space on their way down to their low solar orbits.

Not necessarily. Last I heard, some astronomers and astrophysists are starting to think we may have had a super jupiter/hot jupiter in our solar system's early history. Lithium is not a commonly occuring metal in stars, however it is (relatively speaking) common in most gas giants. Our sun has an overabundance of lithium in its photosphere compared to most stars.

So early working theory is we had a hot gas giant that spiraled in and was absorbed by the sun probably billions of years ago in our solar system's history.

I don't know if there is much backing other than a hunch in terms of orbital models of the other planets, but it is a very interesting idea.

[SunJumper]

There was a good thread on this a while back, proposing this exact sort of thing. The problem was just that it was way too tough in practice. If I remember right, someone used HyperEdit to put a planet into a highly inclined orbit, although IIRC it was a circular orbit near Kerbin's radius. The ridiculous amount of delta-V needed to match orbits made it nearly impossible to reach, though; if you didn't incline your orbit to match it you'd enter its SOI with far too much relative velocity to slow into an orbit, and inclining to match it beforehand would take a ridiculous amount of fuel unless your ship was all ions.

Frankly, I'd hope they wouldn't do this for Kerbin's system, and would save it for neighboring systems if they ever get around to adding FTL. In the meantime, I'd just like them to incline ANYTHING ELSE; many planets and moons in KSP might have orbits tilted relative to the ecliptic, but none of the planets seem to have any kind of axial tilt, and most of the moons are aligned with the ecliptic as well. (The exceptions being Minmus, Gilly, and one of Jool's moons). I mean really, there's a topic on the front page of this forum talking about how Mun was eclipsing something in Kerbin orbit, which happens once per month in KSP and far, far less often in the real world.

If this body were to be added quite far from the sun, the landing/return delta-v costs might be about that of Tylo. Difficult, but not impossible.

[lazarus1024]

If the planet had an atmosphere it actually might be thaattttt hard to do. It would be real tricky, but you could use the atmosphere for capture, or a straight descent and then for return to Kerbin you could do the same.

It would be VERY tricky, but you could do significantly lower dV designs by utilizing aerocapture.

Honestly I think that would be really cool to do.

[Iron4venger]

A very inclined planet is only feasible to reach at the node, and I'd say it must be at the same time in the apogee and have a nice stmosphere to areobrake into.

Anything else seems Av crazy. As said before.

Also I say save something for extra Kerbol Systems. At least move some any stuff out when tested.

[Spatzimaus]

Lithium is not a commonly occuring metal in stars, however it is (relatively speaking) common in most gas giants.

Not true. Lithium IS commonly made in large stars (ones much more massive than our own), since it's a common product in the fusion progression of larger stars and was one of the three elements created during the Big Bang. (Although "common" means something a bit different when you're talking about a universe whose visible matter is over 99% Hydrogen and Helium.) The catch is that stars large enough to create Lithium are also large enough to fuse it into something heavier (usually the Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen cycle, although really big stars go all the way up to Iron before stopping). Small stars that can't fuse Lithium into anything heavier CAN fuse it back down into Helium (Lithium-7 + a proton-> 2*Helium-4, referred to as "Lithium Burning"), so they deplete it VERY quickly. The temperature necessary to burn Lithium is actually LESS than what's needed for hydrogen fusion; an object can't fuse atomic hydrogen until its mass is about ~80 Jupiters, but Lithium Burning can happen above ~65 Jupiters, so the largest brown dwarfs will also be low in lithium.

Side note: it really annoys us when people talk about Jupiter as a "star that failed", as if that factor of 80 in mass was only a tiny difference. When we talk about Brown Dwarfs, we're usually limiting ourselves to things heavier than ~13 Jupiters, because that's the point at which Deuterium can fuse (which is enough to heat them up intensely but not enough to be easily visible, since non-stars can't easily make more Deuterium). So don't confuse brown dwarfs with gas giants; the two have very different characteristics. Many Gas Giants are actually fairly poor in DETECTABLE lithium, because it bonds into solids that then sink into the planet's liquid layers; it's mid-sized brown dwarfs that tend to be rich in atomic lithium.

So big stars won't have much detectable Lithium because they're consuming it as they make it, small stars (and large brown dwarfs) won't have much because they're burning it back down to Helium, gas giants often won't have much because it's bound into solids that sink down, and the brown dwarfs in between are the only things that keep it in atomic form.

Our sun has an overabundance of lithium in its photosphere compared to most stars. So early working theory is we had a hot gas giant that spiraled in and was absorbed by the sun probably billions of years ago in our solar system's history.

That's been suggested as one possible explanation, but it's definitely NOT the "working theory". Our Sun is rich in ALL metals (for astronomers, "metals" means "anything other than hydrogen or helium") because when the gas cloud our system eventually formed out of was coalescing, a massive star nearby went supernova and dumped some of its metals into our cloud. That shockwave probably also initiated our gravitational collapse, but the main upshot is that our system is much richer in metals than most of our neighbors. In most stars near us, about 0.5% of the mass comes from metals, while our own Sun is over 2% metals; it isn't even nearly large enough to create them itself through fusion, so they had to have come from an outside source, and no collision can possibly explain this sheer abundance of metals. That's not to say that a gas giant couldn't have collided with the Sun at some point, which might have left a measurable trace in the photosphere, but that would have been a drop in the bucket relative to the Sun's overall composition.

The photosphere discrepancy, then, would imply that our Sun was initially rich in Lithium, just like it's rich in most other metals, but that the Lithium deep inside the star burned down to Helium while the lithium in the upper, non-fusing layers remained (until it sank down to the inner parts, which happens over the course of ~100 million years for most stars). Only the outermost areas, the ones without enough drag to sink the heavier elements down over ~5 billion years, would keep anything close to the original composition. Since those layers WOULD be the beneficiaries of any collisions, it's likely that the photosphere was enriched by a number of objects in the early days of the Solar System, which stretches out the timescale even further, but the sheer sizes involved mean that the elements we detect there now almost definitely were there from the start.

To the earlier point, "hot jupiters" prevent what we'd think of as terrestrial planets, by tossing them all out of the system or into the star. A gas giant simply CAN'T form closer to a star than a rocky planet can, which is a small part of why Pluto got demoted. If one had slowly spiraled in from an outer orbit, it would have taken out all of the inner planets as it went.

If a gas giant DID collide with our Sun at some point, it didn't spiral in slowly and didn't occupy any kind of close stable orbit; it had to have just dropped almost straight in, quickly enough that it didn't interact with much on the way down. During the early days of the Solar System, a lot of stuff got thrown around, but most of it would go outward, not inward. To actually hit the Sun, your interaction would have to bleed off all of the rotational kinetic energy in the primary interaction, and the chance of that happening is minute. Most of the stuff that got tossed around by interactions either escaped the system or ran into something else. (For instance, our own Moon was probably created when an object the size of Mars ran into Earth. We usually refer to that object as "Theia".)

If the planet had an atmosphere it actually might be thaattttt hard to do.

The sheer velocity involved would mean that you'd have to set up your intercept periapsis to be within the lower atmosphere before entering the SOI. Otherwise, you just wouldn't have enough time to steer it for an aerobrake during the intercept itself. Passing through that low at that speed is practically guaranteed to destroy your ship; they haven't implemented reentry heat yet, but the current drag model WILL cause your ship to rip itself apart if you hit the thick parts too fast. (Heck, I've had that happen on Kerbin just returning from Minmus!)

The fact is, an aerobrake really only works when you're already close enough to the right velocity to skim the upper atmosphere without hitting the deeper parts. That's enough to move you from a pass-through interaction to a lopsided orbit that you can fix with rockets, but it's not enough to stop something moving at God's Own Speed. And that's what we're talking about here; when you're going from Kerbin to Duna you didn't start with much relative velocity (since they're going the same direction) and your transfer orbit kills most of the rest naturally. But intersecting a perpendicular orbit means your relative velocity is SQRT(2) times the orbital velocity, and a transfer in the plane of your own planet won't chop much off of that; it might kill of the relative speed from Kerbin, but it won't touch the huge velocity of the perpendicular object.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Spatzimaus

[Mystic]

I think it would also be interesting if they had a captured rogue planet in a polar orbit arount kerbol. You'd have to slingshot off jool to match its inclanation. Or maybe a large comet or something of the sort.

COMETS! I Want COMETS in the Kerbol system! Why didn't I think of this before? How infinitely cool would that be? (salivates)

[dacamp66]

this is why I suggested a Kuiper belt earlier in the topic; many "short period" comets are refugees from the Kuiper belt. one example of this: comet Halley