Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Mongo Park is melting in the rain!

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

I still don't know what Mongo is. I feel so pop culturally ignorant .

 

Educate yourself. If your local library has a volume of collected Flash Gordon comics, I highly recommend you check it out. I believe there are also some old Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon serials online here and there, and they are well worth watching. The movie made in the 80s was cheesy, but a lot of people like it. There was a cartoon in the 70s or 80s, and another cartoon in the 90s; as is the nature of cartoons, they are often cheesy but still interesting enough. The TV show that came out recently is dumb.

[austenandrews]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

I believe there are also some old Buster Keaton Flash Gordon serials online here and there' date=' and they are well worth watching.[/quote']

I think you mean Buster Crabbe, but I kinda like your idea.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

I think you mean Buster Crabbe' date=' but I kinda like your idea. [/quote']

 

DOH!!! You are correct, sir.

[assault]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Buster Keaton would have done a very fine job in the role, though.

[The Weapon]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Ice worlds heated by volcanism are possible. Stick your world far enough out and the energy from it's sun is negligable. Put in enough volcanism from having/being a moon and there are seas, maybe even bare ground where the heat comes up. Strickly speaking it's a two enviroment world, icy and just warm enough not to be totally iced over. I think Europa (or one of Jupiter's moons) is like this and the seas are all under kilometers of ice.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Ice worlds HEATED ?

[dmjalund]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

now THATS what I call Central Heating

[austenandrews]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

So volcanism alone would create a more even heat distribution across the surface? That sounds feasible, though I wonder if a planet's internal heat by itself would be sufficient to put its surface (or near-surface) in a temperature zone that's amenable to humans. Isn't much of Europa's internal heat presumed to be driven by tidal forces from Jupiter?

 

Maybe if it was young enough to retain the heat of its formation? You could also load its interior with vast quantities of radioactive material. I have no idea how those numbers shake out.

[dmjalund]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

it is the tidal forces that cause the volcanism

[The Weapon]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

So volcanism alone would create a more even heat distribution across the surface? That sounds feasible, though I wonder if a planet's internal heat by itself would be sufficient to put its surface (or near-surface) in a temperature zone that's amenable to humans. Isn't much of Europa's internal heat presumed to be driven by tidal forces from Jupiter?

 

Maybe if it was young enough to retain the heat of its formation? You could also load its interior with vast quantities of radioactive material. I have no idea how those numbers shake out.

 

You're right I forgot that. In any case my point still stands, heating can be supplied by something other than the sun, so you can have close to one-environment worlds. I'm pretty sure realistically it's going to be a pretty cold environment though.

[Cancer]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Radioactives are a one-time heat reservoir that decays exponentially, but it is "stored" in the sense that the heat is generated in the interior of the planet after the planet is formed (as compared to the heat of accretion, which is added as the planet falls together, and the heat of differentiation, which happens during the planet formation process as the denser stuff sinks and the less dense stuff floats). That exponential decay is inevitable: the source is ALWAYS greatest at early times and falls off as time goes by. Tidal heating, almost uniquely, doesn't have to be greater at early times; if anything, it tends to be more or less constant with time, modulo "interesting" irreversible events due to planetary dynamics.

[austenandrews]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

You're right I forgot that. In any case my point still stands' date=' heating can be supplied by something other than the sun, so you can have close to one-environment worlds. I'm pretty sure realistically it's going to be a pretty cold environment though.[/quote']

Surely we could invent some condition to trap the heat and raise the temperature of a (possibly internal) atmosphere?

[Ragitsu]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

It gets especially interesting in settings where worlds really can be flat.

[Lucius]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

For the World is Hollow, and I Have Touched the Sky

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary thinks that's the best title ever.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Interesting, though I disagree with some of his more outlandish theories. There is only so much we can guess, being barely able to leave our planet (and we haven't even exploited the many opportunities yet).

[Ragitsu]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]36031[/ATTACH]

 

Sure, there's water, but it seems the landmass is mostly the same in terms of topography.

[FreeDice]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

SF author Larry Niven summed up this fallacy with the flippant quote "It was raining on Mongo that day..."

 

Do you know what book that's from? (And please don't lmgtgy - I did, and couldn't find it.) Thank you!

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

That's actually a Jerry Pournelle quote which is why you won't find it trying to google Niven. It was his way of explaining the bad literary habit of oversimplication we tend to see in the creation of planets for science fiction stories. Never think of your planet, as small, etc etc etc ......Nyrath would most likely be able to toss up better links for that though, if you could find him.

 

~Rex

[FreeDice]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

That's actually a Jerry Pournelle quote which is why you won't find it trying to google Niven. It was his way of explaining the bad literary habit of oversimplication we tend to see in the creation of planets for science fiction stories. Never think of your planet, as small, etc etc etc ......Nyrath would most likely be able to toss up better links for that though, if you could find him.

 

~Rex

 

Ah, thank you.

[RexMundi]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Any time. As they say, when it rains on Mongo, it rains Everywhere. Except Mongo City.

 

~Rex

[Ragitsu]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Do even "pleasure planets" (beach world) need a minimum ecosystem to exist?

[Old Man]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Decent beaches are made out of coral sand, which is made out of... coral. Which exists symbiotically with algae. I suppose you could have an ecosystem that consists of nothing but coral, but it seems to me that given any life at all in a benign environment like seawater at 75 degrees, you'd get significant speciation in no time.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Decent beaches are made out of coral sand' date=' which is made out of... coral. Which exists symbiotically with algae. I suppose you could have an ecosystem that consists of nothing but coral, but it seems to me that given any life at all in a benign environment like seawater at 75 degrees, you'd get significant speciation in no time.[/quote']

 

Is it possible to have a pleasant ocean without sealife?

[Sundog]

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

 

Is it possible to have a pleasant ocean without sealife?

 

Unlikely. You'd end up with all sorts of nasty chemical combinations leached out of the surrounding stones and then never re-sequestered in animal and plant remains. My guess is that it would stink and be highly toxic.

 

Worse, unless you have VERY large quantities of plantlife on the land surfaces, there wouldn't be enough of a biocycle to keep the air oxygenated. Come to that, if there WAS enough, you'd get CO2 buildup in the water - say, dilute sulphuric acid?