Small, potentially water-bearing exoplanet

General physics and astronomy discussions not directly related to Celestia
AlexChan
Posts: 33
Joined: 29.09.2004
With us: 20 years 2 months

Post #21by AlexChan » 26.04.2007, 01:52

Planet X & Bdm, Thanks you.
But also sorry to Bdm, I am not 100% understand about how to use software to get that result.
Because my English not good at all.

Anyway, I am wondering and imaging the world where sky look purple or green :)


BTW, I put the Earth in this system :twisted:
And according to Planet X, (I finished before I saw Bdm post)
this is a purple sky and pink clouds Earth

Image

bh
Posts: 1547
Joined: 17.12.2002
With us: 22 years
Location: Oxford, England

Post #22by bh » 26.04.2007, 07:10

Okay... downloaded and installed latest extrasolar.ssc but I can't locate and go to Gliese 581! Celestia says 'object not found'... help please. V 1.4.1.
regards...bh.

ajtribick
Developer
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Post #23by ajtribick » 26.04.2007, 09:14

Further advantage of the third planet of this system - the planet's orbit is quite similar to Mercury's in terms of eccentricity and period, which suggests to me that the planet may not be 1:1 synchronised with its orbit, but could be in a 3:2 state. In this case, the planet would have a day-night cycle of around 170 days. This would also cause very weird climate zones, depending on which parts of the planet were facing the star at periastron and apastron.

eburacum45
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Post #24by eburacum45 » 28.04.2007, 06:32

This paper is very interesting;
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/ ... 3454v1.pdf
it is written by two of the authors who supplied the rule of thumb which supplied the popularly-quoted radius, Valencia and Sasselov.
But this one is much more comprehensive, it seems to me; it gives a wide range of densities and radiuses, all dependent on a tripartite division of components between metallic core, rocky mantle, and watery hydrosphere.
A feasible waterworld could be as much as 80% water according to this paper.

There seem to be two different models for the formation of worlds like Gl 581 c; if it formed in the dry inner part of the solar nebula, it would be mostly metallic core and rocky mantle; the maximum feasible density (according to the paper) gives a planet with 65% metallic core, 35% mantle, minimal water, a diameter of 1.5 Earth's and a gravity of 2.2 gees.
The other model concerns a Neptune-like ice core world which formed beyond the snow line, and migrated inwards; the minimum density (80% water) gives a radius twice Earth's and a gravity of 1.2 gees.

Two very different worlds; I don't know if there is any way to distinguish them at this stage.

eburacum45
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Post #25by eburacum45 » 28.04.2007, 14:14

Hmm; Currently Wikipedia agrees with me; perhaps someone else has read that paper.


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