Timeline for Creating a dark world - How can I not completely handwave the dark cloudy atmosphere
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 17, 2018 at 19:22 | vote | accept | BornToDoStuff | ||
| Jan 17, 2018 at 15:00 | comment | added | Willk | @HDE 226868 - I learned what optical depth was and then read this modeling of the Fomalhaut ring / disc. I am not able to coherently translate what they found to what a person shaded by the disc would perceive. But it is super interesting. If analyses like this fall in your wheelhouse and you are willing / interested, post an addendum to the idea explaining how optical density is important to this concept and what your analysis means for its feasibility. I would like to learn. | |
| Jan 17, 2018 at 14:11 | comment | added | Frostfyre | Fomalhaut? Is that what Sauron changed his name to? | |
| Jan 17, 2018 at 13:11 | comment | added | HDE 226868♦ | What's the horizontal optical depth in this part of the disk? If $\tau\ll1$, then there's a problem, because the disk will still let plenty of light through. Also, it's not really a ring; it's a debris disk. | |
| Jan 16, 2018 at 23:52 | comment | added | Justin Thyme | @Will Hence my comment about these 'rings' being more like an 'asteroid belt', made of much larger particles. Sort of like what the earth will have if we keep sending up space junk. | |
| Jan 16, 2018 at 22:29 | comment | added | Random | Interesting. Could you also work something like this to justifying regular meteor showers from space debris? | |
| Jan 16, 2018 at 20:51 | history | edited | LSerni | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jan 16, 2018 at 20:30 | comment | added | Not a real meerkat | Earth's diameter is not 40km. Closer to 12742km (Depending on where you're measuring). Your point still stands, though. | |
| Jan 16, 2018 at 20:18 | comment | added | Willk | @Justin Thyme: kingledion's comment about thin rings would apply to a ring around the planet. Take a look at saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/rings to see the surprisingly sharp shadows cast by Saturns rings. | |
| Jan 16, 2018 at 20:05 | comment | added | Justin Thyme | Why a ring around the star? Why not a ring around the planet, in the perpendicular between the planet and the star? Like a mini asteroid belt millions of fractured rock particles that filter out the light? The atmosphere would average out the shadows into a more constant filter. | |
| Jan 16, 2018 at 20:00 | comment | added | BornToDoStuff | OH! That is super cool. Thanks for the reference. In the reference it seems that the planets are massively cold BUT because of the awesomeness, in the context I am thinking of I could just handwave the distance from the sun or its temperature and use a star ring to create a dark planet. | |
| Jan 16, 2018 at 19:47 | history | edited | Willk | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jan 16, 2018 at 19:43 | comment | added | Willk | @Kingledion: re thin rings - just as my pants are much larger than yours on account of my much largerness, so too the ring of a star is greater than the ring of a planet. Addendum with refs added! | |
| Jan 16, 2018 at 18:15 | comment | added | BornToDoStuff | @kingledion I am, but this answer did open my eyes to this possibility which I quite like. It provides an answer a little outside of my scope, but it is a welcome one. Its a shame that apparently rings are very thin, because this would actually be a nice solution | |
| Jan 16, 2018 at 18:11 | comment | added | bendl | The idea of the sun rising and setting over this ring is very cool. | |
| Jan 16, 2018 at 18:10 | comment | added | kingledion | Rings are very thin. Saturn's rings are only 100 m thick at most. Given even the slightest inclination of the planet from the ring's plane, the ring won't shade anything. On a second note, reading back over the question, I feel like the OP was looking for more of an atmospheric phenomenon rather than astronomical. | |
| Jan 16, 2018 at 17:24 | history | answered | Willk | CC BY-SA 3.0 |