Craters on Minimus and Ice caps on Laythe

[mikeman7918]

I have been playing Kerbal Space Program (Duh) and I noticed that some celestial bodies are not entirely realistic and could use some improvement. First off, I want to clarify that I do indeed think that KSP is an awesome game (my favorite ever) and I believe that the devs have done an AMAZING job at making it. (I am getting in to game design myself and I have really developed a respect for these guys considering how hard it is)

I noticed that Minimus is the only body in the Kerbal system that lacks an atmosphere while at the same time, has no craters. This makes no sense because in real life, there are meteors floating about everywhere in the solar system, whacking things at random, and making a crater there if there is no atmosphere to stop it. I thing re-modeling Minimus to include some craters would be nice, but I still quite like the unique terrain it has, and a better option would probably be to come up with some excuse as to why that moon is so smooth.

The other thing I would like to recommend is ice caps on Laythe, temperature readings on the surface of Laythe currently don't depend on your latitude, but they are almost always a few degrees above freezing, this would make sense on the equator, but logically, the poles would be below freezing and the water would freeze, forming ice caps.

If you want to see anything I just mentioned in KSP, then comment and say so, if you like the game as is and think my ideas suck, say that too, I want this to be a 2 sided discussion.

[vexx32]

You'll notice that Minmus is apparently mostly ice or snow. It being so close to the Sun -- close enough to keep a planet like Kerbin mostly ice-free -- I would expect that the surface layers of ice and snow would melt during Minmus' daytime, at least partially. Enough to hide craters. Then, come night, the ice and snow freeze up again.

[LethalDose]

In addition to Vexx's comments about the freeze/thaw cycle, I think it's unlikely that Minmus would be frequently struck by asteroids of any significance due to two main reasons:

1. Minmus is very small
   
2. Minmus has very low gravity
   

First, Minmus is a very small target: it's equatorial radius is reported to be only 60 km, which would make it's cross sectional area is about 11,310 sq km, compared to 125,664 sq km for the Mün. The Mün is a larger target by just a little more than an order of magnitude, by chance alone, we would expect Minmus to be struck about 1/10 as frequently as the Mün.

BUT! The story doesn't end there, now does it? Minmus also has extremely low gravity, even in its immediate vicinity. Due to it's low gravity, it's not able to alter the course of rogue asteroids enough to cause collisions, where as the Mün's gravitation (and probably Kerbin's gravitation, as well) is more able to alter the course of asteroids and pull them into collisions.

What probably happens is that any asteroids that enter the Kerbin system and spend enough time there to make them likely to hit something are usually sucked up by and collide with either Kerbin or the Mün, letting Minmus tootle along is nice little elliptical orbit, doing it's tasty, tasty thing.

So, to recap: Tiny target + low gravity + big brothers = Safety from asteroids.

[jwenting]

yes, almost anything that might hit Minmus is much more likely to hit the Mun or Kerbin instead.

And any icecap on Laythe would because of the tidal forces exerted on it by Jool (and the other moons of Jool, especially Tylo) be ripped to small bits rather quickly, floating on the oceans of Laythe until they melt (seeing Laythe's average surface temperature being slightly above freezing).

Maybe in time KSP can have icebergs and ocean currents, but there's a lot more important things to do than develop those just on the off chance that someone might be able to land something on an iceberg and have it float around.

[Deathsoul097]

There are already polar ice-caps on laythe.

[Kasuha]

I noticed that Minimus is the only body in the Kerbal system that lacks an atmosphere while at the same time, has no craters.

Eeloo, Vall, Bop, Pol, and Gilly don't have discernible craters either.

I agree with you that ice caps on Laythe are way too small for its distance from Sun. But Laythe is supposed to have a lot of internal heat, it was supposed to be volcanic planet. So we can assume those volcanoes are somewhere underwater, heating the planet up.

[Monkeh]

...there are meteors floating about everywhere in the solar system,

Just want to give you a heads up about phrasing for rocks in space. A meteor is a rock that enters Earth's atmosphere. A meteorite is one that reaches the ground. You therefore never find them in space.

Asteroid and comets are the things you find in space and they differ in a few, key points:

Asteroids

Orbit: Typical elliptical orbit; distance from the sun does not vary too much

Chemical composition: Does not produce an atmosphere

Nomenclature: Named by discoverer

Orbital period (years): 1-100

Size range of diameter (kilometer): 1 - 100++

Comets

Orbit: Eccentric orbit; distance from the sun varies greatly

Chemical composition: Volatile material on the surface which produces a coma (thin, temporary atmosphere) when the comet comes close to the sun

Nomenclature: Named for the discoverer

Orbital Period (years): 75 to 100,000++

Size range of diameter (kilometre): 1-10 (nucleus only)

In 2006 a unified term was coined that encompasses both comets and asteroids: "Small Solar System Body".

There you go, you really do learn something new every day

[Tw1]

You'll notice that Minmus is apparently mostly ice or snow. It being so close to the Sun -- close enough to keep a planet like Kerbin mostly ice-free -- I would expect that the surface layers of ice and snow would melt during Minmus' daytime, at least partially. Enough to hide craters. Then, come night, the ice and snow freeze up again.

From the EVA report, it says some sort of fine crystal, but doesn't necessarily rule out melting action. Some have suggested sublimation, which could explain the lack of erosion patterns, but then you'd expect some traces of atmosphere unless it was very slight. Then there's the kraken egg theory...

That said, I like the melt and reform theory, it covers it well. Perhaps the substance it's made from does melt, but very slowly, and is very viscous..