[KSP speculaton] What is Kerbin made of?

[PlonioFludrasco]

Hello, as you may have notice, Kerbin has the same surface gravity as Earth, while it's way smaller.

As calculated by someone and reported on the game wiki, Kerbin's density is about 58x10^3 Kg/m^3, and Earth's is 5.5x10^3 Kg/m^3.

So the question is: what do you think Kerbin is made of? Blutonium maybe? :D

Edited February 25, 2014 by PlonioFludrasco

[LLlAMnYP]

I prefer to believe, that some things (scaled down by factor 10 universe) are truly no more than game-balancing decisions, rather than having a specific storyline behind it.

[stupid_chris]

Dyson shells.

[Red Iron Crown]

Electrons residing in microchips.

[PlonioFludrasco]

I prefer to believe, that some things (scaled down by factor 10 universe) are truly no more than game-balancing decisions, rather than having a specific storyline behind it.

I know, my intention was to made a kerbal-style speculation, just for fun.

The sort of thing that made those green guys to think that Minmus is made of mint dessert.

[acrain116]

The wiki shows that Kerbin has a density of 58x10^3 kg/m^3, not 5.8. I don't know if a meterial exists yet that is that dense. So I'm going to go with it's either made of the newly discovered Kerbonium, or the more improbable/impossible chance that there is a very small black hole in Kerbin's core that somehow doesn't affect the planet's structure at all .

[Ralathon]

The wiki shows that Kerbin has a density of 58x10^3 kg/m^3, not 5.8. I don't know if a meterial exists yet that is that dense. So I'm going to go with it's either made of the newly discovered Kerbonium, or the more improbable/impossible chance that there is a very small black hole in Kerbin's core that somehow doesn't affect the planet's structure at all .

Plenty of exotic matter that is much denser than that. The degenerate matter in dwarf and neutron stars being a prime example.

Anyway, by far the best explanation for Kerbins size is gameplay because from a logical PoV it makes no sense. For starters, the planet would need to be much colder than earth to retain its atmosphere. It takes 11km/s to escape earth but only 3.4km/s for Kerbin, this means that at earth temperatures a significant fraction of light molecules (Oxygen, nitrogen, water) would move faster than escape velocity due to thermal effects. Thus the atmosphere would bleed into interplanetary space within a few weeks.

They simply made the planets 10 times smaller to reduce travel times and dV requirements. If you have to wrestle with the navball for 10 minutes every launch you're going to be really sick of that very quickly. Not to mention that the learning curve would become steeper than Dwarf Fortress.

[SargeRho]

Couldn't the smaller size of the Kerbin system be explained by a stronger gravitational force or something along those lines?

[stupid_chris]

Couldn't the smaller size of the Kerbin system be explained by a stronger gravitational force or something along those lines?

The mass is given in the Kerbal Knowledge database in game, so we know the force is the same in their universe.

[LordOfTheOrbits]

Obviously it has a small black hole inside it and uses graphene in its inner layers so it doesn't get destroyed.

[Ralathon]

Obviously it has a small black hole inside it and uses graphene in its inner layers so it doesn't get destroyed.

How would graphene help? The tidal forces on the event horizon are infinite, nothing will keep a planet with a black hole core from collapsing. (shells have no gravitational interaction with their contents, so the hole would eventually drift to some wall and destroy the planet.)

[PlonioFludrasco]

The wiki shows that Kerbin has a density of 58x10^3 kg/m^3, not 5.8. I don't know if a meterial exists yet that is that dense. So I'm going to go with it's either made of the newly discovered Kerbonium, or the more improbable/impossible chance that there is a very small black hole in Kerbin's core that somehow doesn't affect the planet's structure at all .

Ooops! Typo corrected

[Soda Popinski]

Much like the Bible Niblonians, kerbals poop dense dark matter, and due to a poor sewage system, it gathers in the core.

[victory143]

Osmium maybe?

[Alchemist]

If you clip the camera into the terrain in map mode, you can see some blue glow inside Kerbin. I like to think it's somewhat like neutron star in the core.

Osmium maybe?

It's 2.5 times denser than osmium.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Alchemist

[Sillychris]

It doesn't have to have a black hole in the middle to account for the density, just give it a tiny neutron star as a core!

[Everten P.]

I heard someone say theat graphene was capable of stopping a black hole earlier in this thread and FYI to him graphene is not indestructible and even then a black hole isn't an explosion, but the opposite not to mention as it gets down to the EH time slows and about Kerbin it's probably made of some form of exotic matter. Also I hope this goes somewhere cool but I have other things to do.

[LordOfTheOrbits]

How would graphene help? The tidal forces on the event horizon are infinite, nothing will keep a planet with a black hole core from collapsing. (shells have no gravitational interaction with their contents, so the hole would eventually drift to some wall and destroy the planet.)

The graphene would only be useful prevent the shell from collapsing due to structural failure. Are you sure that the shells have no gravitational interaction with their content? If that's true my theory would be impossible. Otherwise the shell wouldn't get near the event horizon because every side of the shell would get the same force from the black hole and therefore it would always be balanced out.

[LordOfTheOrbits]

I heard someone say theat graphene was capable of stopping a black hole earlier in this thread and FYI to him graphene is not indestructible and even then a black hole isn't an explosion, but the opposite not to mention as it gets down to the EH time slows and about Kerbin it's probably made of some form of exotic matter. Also I hope this goes somewhere cool but I have other things to do.

I never suggested that graphene was capable of stopping a black hole, the graphene would only be there to prevent structural failures of the shell. But it seems that is also not possible because shells apparently don't get any gravitational forces from their content, which I didn't know.

[m4v]

is made of highly compressed rocket debris and green paste.

[TheDarkStar]

Obviously, it's a gravitational version of a Mag-Lev train - the center of Kerbin's mass is constantly moved to avoid the black hole in the center hitting any walls. If it starts to get close on one side, mass would be moved to the other side of the planet, pulling the black hole more strongly in that direction. This also explains how altitudes can jump around while in orbit.

(I'd like for someone to point out possible flaws in this.

[Ralathon]

The graphene would only be useful prevent the shell from collapsing due to structural failure.

Graphene, nanotubes and other nanomaterials like that are designed to have great tensile strengths, not compressive. Look at them as rope; great for pulling on things, not so great for pushing. If you try to keep a shell from imploding you need compressive strength. So you're better off building it out of concrete or something.

Are you sure that the shells have no gravitational interaction with their content? If that's true my theory would be impossible. Otherwise the shell wouldn't get near the event horizon because every side of the shell would get the same force from the black hole and therefore it would always be balanced out.

Look up Shell Theorem. You can mathematically prove that a shell will never exert any kind of gravitational force on anything it contains. So yea, all forces are exactly balanced. But that's not what you want because it means that even the slightest bit of drift will eventually move the black hole towards the wall.

[Sillychris]

is made of highly compressed rocket debris and green paste.

ie a neutron star

[Greenfire32]

Our KSC scientists can confirm that the surface of our dear planet is composed of 92.7% "ground" with a remaining 7.3% composed of "stuff and other bits."

The same scientists unanimously agree that Kerbin's atmosphere is comprised of 100% "air."

[DaveofDefeat]

Uranium, that's why they are green.