Dense planets

General physics and astronomy discussions not directly related to Celestia
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kikinho
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Dense planets

Post #1by kikinho » 12.10.2004, 04:10

I'm doing in my system a planet that is rich in uranium, seaborgium and other heavy elements. This planet is very hot, is about the size of Uranus and have a extreme thick atmosphere based on heavy elements like iron and lead. The temperature is about 1742K.

I'm also doing a planet that is made of ice and some rock, but is dense as Mercury. This planet have a size between Earth and Neptune. The interior of this planet is very active and under the icy crost there is a big ocean. Europa has this same theory. This planet is very cold, the temperature is about 165K.

Michael Kilderry
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Post #2by Michael Kilderry » 12.10.2004, 04:33

Interesting ideas, it's always good when people think of ideas for planets that are a bit different.

Michael Kilderry :)

Evil Dr Ganymede
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Re: Dense planets

Post #3by Evil Dr Ganymede » 12.10.2004, 06:19

kikinho wrote:I'm doing in my system a planet that is rich in uranium, seaborgium and other heavy elements. This planet is very hot, is about the size of Uranus and have a extreme thick atmosphere based on heavy elements like iron and lead. The temperature is about 1742K.


What's Seaborgium? (this world sounds like a brown dwarf, with a very strange element distribution)

eburacum

Post #4by eburacum » 12.10.2004, 07:00

Its an artificial element;
http://www.scescape.net/~woods/elements/seaborgium.html

it has a half life of 0.9 seconds, so these worlds must evolve rapidly...

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kikinho
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Post #5by kikinho » 12.10.2004, 12:33

The quimic reactions of many radioactive elements form seaborgium. The interior of this planet is rich in iron, lead and radioactive elements like uranium and plutonium. Seaborgium is the result of the quimic processes and it forms in the interior of volcanoes.

And what about the giant icy planet I wrote?

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Post #6by Evil Dr Ganymede » 12.10.2004, 16:37

I have no idea what "quimic" means, but I don't know of any kind of reaction that produces an artificial element other than very rapid radioactive decay (if going down from a heavier element, or very high neutron bombardment (if going up from a lighter element). The reason we don't find the artificial elemnts in nature is that they decay so rapidly. Undoubtedly tiny amounts are formed in supernovae (there is evidence from Xenon ratios that the Earth did have some naturally occurring plutonium but it's all decayed now AFAIK), but the decay rates for those elements are so rapid that they all disappear extremely quickly. It certainly doesn't sound like your heavy element world is remotely realistic though.

As for your dense icy world - it can't have much ice, otherwise it wouldn't be that dense. Plus it's very unlikely that you'd get such a dense world forming in the outer system where it could get a layer of ice and water. Plus it's so dense that it'd easily be able to retain hydrogen and helium, in which case it'd be a gas giant, not a planet. In fact, it'd be able to retain hydrogen and helium no matter where it was in the planetary system.

I presume all these unrealistic worlds and systems that are being proposed here are done so in order to be reality-checked. If you don't care about sticking to real physics and so on, then you probably shouldn't be posting them to the Physics and Astronomy forum ;).

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Post #7by granthutchison » 12.10.2004, 19:28

Evil Dr Ganymede wrote:I have no idea what "quimic" means ...
It's just a language thing. Kikinho has used quimic a lot in his various posts, in contexts which indicate the sense is "chemical". It makes sense if you know that Portuguese for chemistry is qu?mica.
So he's either misusing the word here, or is just deploying fantasy.

Grant

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Post #8by Evil Dr Ganymede » 12.10.2004, 20:02

Oh, OK. But still, chemical reactions don't form transuranic elements - only radioactive decay and bombardment with other nuclei can do that.


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