A Tribute to the Poles

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

Hi Guys,

I just found the Mun's Teeth the other day on its southern Pole and now I am interested in what the other Poles look like.

Did anyone of you took some pictures when you visited other Planets and Moons and ventured to their Poles?

[Sof]

I hear Moho has fun times up north

[Weegee]

Well, I don't have the screenshot anymore, but the south pole of Duna rises up on all sides, then drops into a pit similar to Mun/Moholes, though I'm pretty sure it was intentional.

[MajorThomas]

Well, Mun's north pole doesn't have any teeth, but has a really steep polar pyramid, can't climb it. The ridges and valleys around the north pole are also quite spectacular, and not easy to find a good place to land.

[lajoswinkler]

I was meaning to open a thread for collecting such info, but I thought the interest in these things was quite low.

I've did some research of this places back when I was dumping probes all over the Kerbol system, but I never visited each pole of each body.

This is Minmus' north pole. Basically a thin line.

This is Eve's north pole.

South pole.

Duna's south pole.

Vall's north pole sports some lovely sights.

Moho has a huge hole on at least one pole. Mün has a pyramid and a rather deep set of holes on one pole. Ike has at least one pointy pole. I don't know about the other bodies. Someone ought to explore Kerbol's poles, but that's very challenging because of the extreme dV requirements, and you can only look at the surface from orbit above some 1500 km.

Thing is, you have to explore these things at high details, otherwise it all looks too stupid. These are rendering anomalies, but on high details they look quite great.

[Tank Buddy]

I think the weird terrain generation near the poles is a result of some problem in the terrain generation, not intentional, considering how, Ike, Duna, Moho, and the Mun all have one or more irregularities in the polar region(s).

[lajoswinkler]

Yes, it's because of the distribution of geographical features which are being squashed together on high geographical altitudes. If the body is generally speaking very smooth, anomalies are small, too.

That's why Eeloo and Gilly shouldn't have anomalies, but I don't recall anyone actually checking and reporting it yet.

[Sof]

Someone ought to explore Kerbol's poles, but that's very challenging because of the extreme dV requirements, and you can only look at the surface from orbit above some 1500 km.

You could do a mission like the one IRL where they used Jupiter's gravity to slingshot into a polar orbit over the sun. I'm guessing something similar would be possible with Jool.

[Wallace]

I thought this thread was going to be a celebration of Polish culture.

[lajoswinkler]

You could do a mission like the one IRL where they used Jupiter's gravity to slingshot into a polar orbit over the sun. I'm guessing something similar would be possible with Jool.

Can it be done without calculations? It's not a simple thing if you want it to be even a bit optimized.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

-snip-

Wow Lajo,

your collection is amazing. I think the next Destinations are set

[Roastduck]

I came into this thread expecting a tribute to the contributions made by Polish citizens to world society. I am disappointed.

[Kasuha]

In my 0.22 save I have flags on (or near) all poles except Eve. But they're basically of two types - either there's crumpled terrain like on Duna or Mun, or there's perfectly normal terrain like everywhere else on the planet.

Each pole is intersection of two tiny cracks in the ground texture coming in right angle, it's easy to notice the right place just by following this crack. But if you're not careful and your Kerbal stands right above this crack, he will die.

On two poles there are much larger cracks. For instance on Minmus South pole. Again, Kerbals die and ships explode if they try to enter them.

[Kinglet]

Minmus has a rift on a pole. The rift allows you to fly under minmus.

[MaverickSawyer]

Must be the Southern one, as I've landed twice at the Northern one. No sign of a rift...

[radonek]

…That's why Eeloo and Gilly shouldn't have anomalies, but I don't recall anyone actually checking and reporting it yet.

Actually, I believe I've found anomaly on Gilly. Except it wasnt very anomalous – small hill on edge of steep slope. It betrayed more regular shape then terrain around, but was so small I didn't noticed it at first and spent some flying around.

[ComradeGoat]

Can it be done without calculations? It's not a simple thing if you want it to be even a bit optimized.

You should be able to get a pretty high inclination by going right to the edge of Kerbin's SOI, doing a bielliptic transfer into polar orbit over Kerbin, bring your periapsis in to about 40km (yes, I know it's in the atmosphere) and then thrust as you pass periapsis to gain escape velocity, and use Kerbin to slingshot you into a highly inclined solar orbit.

I haven't tried it, but it might work. Failing that, use Jool.

[Sof]

You should be able to get a pretty high inclination by going right to the edge of Kerbin's SOI, doing a bielliptic transfer into polar orbit over Kerbin, bring your periapsis in to about 40km (yes, I know it's in the atmosphere) and then thrust as you pass periapsis to gain escape velocity, and use Kerbin to slingshot you into a highly inclined solar orbit.

I haven't tried it, but it might work. Failing that, use Jool.

It won't work on Kerbin. Your orbit will still be heading in the same direction as Kerbin's, just slightly out of plane. You'd still need to have loads of delta-v.

Doing a slingshot around Jool is only as hard as getting the intercept in the first place, then making sure you alter your trajectory so that you pass by the poles of Jool (out of plane of the moons) and you should fling yourself into a polar orbit around Kerbol.

[lajoswinkler]

Wow Lajo,

your collection is amazing. I think the next Destinations are set

Thanks.

I tried with Gilly, but it's so irregularly shaped it's easy to get lost.

Regarding rifts, I don't recall any of those on Minmus' north pole, but then again, that was in v0.22 and things might have changed. I think I do have a flag there so I could check it out.

My Kerbal didn't die on the pole. In fact, it was quite funny watching the camera go mad around him.

I'm glad I solved Eve. It's quite tough to do a precise landing there, but the view is quite nice.

Jool might have a tiny spike on each of its poles, but good luck finding it...

[Max Grant]

Can it be done without calculations? It's not a simple thing if you want it to be even a bit optimized.

Jool (Jupiter)'s gravity is so huge, you really only have to swing broadly at it and you'll hit it.

If you want to get into a polar solar orbit (lol) you just need to arrange a rendezvous with Jool, and in the course of said rendezvous pass over Jool's pole, with some kind of Sun-centric orbit resulting. Jool's gigantic gravity will do all the heavy lifting.

Manuver nodes, son.

[TheDarkStar]

If you want to see giant polar holes, go to Moho. It has one on each pole, and they are both several KM deep.

[Alchemist]

North pole of Moho - all the way to the very bottom. About 5 km deep with bottom point at about 195m.

Behold the rolling probe!