Alternate Planets, Suns, Stars, and Solar Systems Thread

[Janprimus]

Some changes to the Solar System provides us with three habitable world's.

Solar System:
Mercury

Mars / Moon / Moon
Mars is in a closer orbit coupled with a full-sized moon and a diminutive asteroid as well as the positive effects of an active magnetic core have made incredible changes to Mars. No longer a dying world the red planet is still red, but green and blue also invade the surface. With a gravity about half that of Earth's, and a atmosphere roughly comparable to our own Mars is a lush planet with large Iron-rich deserts, and the solar system's largest active super volcano.

Mars itself has an day/night cycle of 25.75 hours, nearly identical to that of the Earth.

Earth / Moon
- Same as modern day

Venus / rings / Moon
The twin of Earth, Venus is the fourth planet from the sun and is very temperate - a little warmer then Earth because of the more robust greenhouse gas effect, but still quite habitable.

Scientists believe that the ring system of Venus was formed after two Moon-sized object collided hundreds of millions of years ago. The asteroid debree couldn’t reform into a moon, and instead became trapped in a circularized orbit around the planet Venus. Venus is the only Terrestrial planet in our solar system to have developed rings like the outer gas giants, and even though the rings have consolidated their orbit at an equatorial 125 km circular orbit they are visible from almost everywhere on the surface of the planet.

Venus itself has a uninhabitable moon, approximately the same size as our own Moon. This moon has over the eons stabilized the rotation of Venus, and allowed an 28 hour "day." Venus is a wet jungle world, drier then Earth but wetter then Mars or Vega. Scientists have calculated that 65% of Venus is covered by water, and that ninety-three percent of the water on Venus is salt water. Air pressure and Gravity are both approximately 85% that of "normal sea-level" conditions on Earth.

Vega / captured asteroids
Vega is the Mars analogue planet, dead or dying - just on the border of the inner habitable zone, and close enough to the asteroid belt to guarantee the capture of a number of asteroids from the main belt Vega is about as inhospitable as they come. Vega has no active core, and it has a surface water percentage of 15% liquid water on its surface which is quickly evaporating along with the decaying atmosphere.

Asteroid Belt

Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Pluto

This would have made the space race a whole lot more interesting, in fact if one of the three had remained primitive, then I can see that as the target for a space race, which keeps the people's attention.

 

[Stuyvesant]

Ryska

Ryska is a rather Earth-Like planet and possesses all major aspects that Earth does and then some. It has a (nearly) Identical atmosphere, and a similar geology; it also has multiple races. It is in a binary orbit with its sister planet Nysko.

This Universe is similar to Victorian concepts of space, where it is not a vacuum, but a thin liquid called Aether.

 

[Maxwell Edison II]

HF

The problem with HF is that it react with SiO2, which is ubiquitous in most imaginable crusts. It also reacts with Fe2O3, Al2O3, CaO.....Basically, it reacts with everything.

When HF is released in vulcanic eruptions on our planet, it will form a noxious, toxic mist together with water (=hydrofluoric acid). It eventually finds its way into the soil where it at first forms soluble fluorides (toxic), eventually the fluoride ions will find calcium, and the result of the love affair is harmless, insoluble fluorite crystals (CaF2). This is rather nasty when it happens in your skin/body which happens upon HF exposure.

Ammonia, Carbon dioxide

Any trace of water and they'll react to form solid ammonium carbonate salts unless the temperature is quite high. Ammonia also reacts with water (even ice) forming mixtures with higher boiling point and lower melting point.

Hydrogen sulfide

Is a gas which loves to dissociate into hydrogen and sulfur.

 

[Chairwoman Roxelana]

Even though it is partially off-topic for this thread; Have any of you guys tried to make a universe of scratch, all the way down to basic properties of matter?

 

[Maxwell Edison II]

Even though it is partially off-topic for this thread; Have any of you guys tried to make a universe of scratch, all the way down to basic properties of matter?

I've modified real world physics, added a few things here, removed other there. Basically, a top-down concept.

Going "bottom up" I haven't.

 

[Dorozhand]

Wolf-Rayet blue giants produce large amounts of Fluorine. Here is a system which began as a W-F blue supergiant (something like the Pistol Star) and a small Type A white star (about the size of Sirius). The supergiant lasted less than a million years before exploding spectacularly as a supernova. This explosion bathed the companion star and its coalescing planets in the stellar material of the W-F, along with its peculiar Fluorine content. A a result, all of the planets in the system contain a great deal of it.

Adad, whose surface temperatures resemble Venus, has an incredibly thick atmosphere of Hydrofluoric, Hydrochloric, and Hydrobromic acid which swirls and eddies in a world-covering maelstrom of clouds.

Shamash, within the liquid range of Hydrogen Fluoride, contains great yellow seas of the stuff, teeming with HF life, whose cells are surrounded by membranes of CF chains, and whose biological processes are carried out by exotic organo-fluorine compounds. Hurricanes lash the coasts, rivers of HF flow down from craggy highlands.

Ishtar is somewhere between Terra and Mars in equivalence to the Sol System. It is dotted by lakes of HF and contains life of roughly Shamashiform type. Selenium, Arsenic, Antimony, and Aluminum are utilized in biological processes.

Marduk is a gas giant about the mass of Neptune, stained bright yellow by Fluorine in its clouds. It is orbited by several moons, one of which, Amathaunta, contains a subsurface sea of HF heated by tidal forces. Life is driven by great convection currents caused by the sinking of solid HF on the surface (bordering the liquid HF and the vacuum of space), its melting in the warmer depths, and subsequent rising to be frozen on the surface again. A soup of HF, HCl, HBr, and halides of various other nonmetallic elements drives a complex and rich biosphere.

Orbiting Ninlil, the neutron-star remnant of the former Wolf-Rayet blue giant, is a gas giant planet captured from the main system.


(diagram not to scale)



http://imgur.com/gL5KT8o

 

[Die Kaiserin]

Here's a map of the inner system of Huitzilopochtli:

View attachment 227478

what program is tihs? it looks fun, be great for me to jumpstart my Alespian timeline back up

 

[Moldav Cocktail]

what program is tihs? it looks fun, be great for me to jumpstart my Alespian timeline back up

It seems to be Universe Sandbox. http://universesandbox.com/

 

[Chairwoman Roxelana]

I've modified real world physics, added a few things here, removed other there. Basically, a top-down concept.

Going "bottom up" I haven't.

It was something I tried when I was younger and I was curious if anyone was interested in trying it again.

 

[Dorozhand]

what program is tihs? it looks fun, be great for me to jumpstart my Alespian timeline back up

Universe Sandbox It's a really fun program

 

[Dorozhand]

Speaking of US, here are some detailed shots of the models of the system that I've built using it.

-The inner system
-The outer system
-The outer system including Miquiztlitecuhtli
-Xochipilli system
-Ometeotl system
-Ehecatl system
-Xantico System
-Xocotzin, the Methane world
-Tloxipeuhca, the Ammonia world
-Zacatzontli system
-size comparison of Zacatzontli and Neptune
-Teotlale and moons
-Chalchiutotolin, the Hydrofluoride world
-Atlacamani (orange vegetation visible) and Chicomecoatl
-Nonohualco and moons
-Huixtocihuatl, the salt world, and Nextepehua
-Xiuhtecuhtli, the scorched world, with seas of liquid metal
-Huitzilopochtli from Xiuhtecuhtli
-circular orbit paths of inner and outer systems

http://imgur.com/sYnAdKj

 

[Dorozhand]

Some changes to the Solar System provides us with three habitable world's.

Solar System:
Mercury

Mars / Moon / Moon
Mars is in a closer orbit coupled with a full-sized moon and a diminutive asteroid as well as the positive effects of an active magnetic core have made incredible changes to Mars. No longer a dying world the red planet is still red, but green and blue also invade the surface. With a gravity about half that of Earth's, and a atmosphere roughly comparable to our own Mars is a lush planet with large Iron-rich deserts, and the solar system's largest active super volcano.

Mars itself has an day/night cycle of 25.75 hours, nearly identical to that of the Earth.

Earth / Moon
- Same as modern day

Venus / rings / Moon
The twin of Earth, Venus is the fourth planet from the sun and is very temperate - a little warmer then Earth because of the more robust greenhouse gas effect, but still quite habitable.

Scientists believe that the ring system of Venus was formed after two Moon-sized object collided hundreds of millions of years ago. The asteroid debree couldn’t reform into a moon, and instead became trapped in a circularized orbit around the planet Venus. Venus is the only Terrestrial planet in our solar system to have developed rings like the outer gas giants, and even though the rings have consolidated their orbit at an equatorial 125 km circular orbit they are visible from almost everywhere on the surface of the planet.

Venus itself has a uninhabitable moon, approximately the same size as our own Moon. This moon has over the eons stabilized the rotation of Venus, and allowed an 28 hour "day." Venus is a wet jungle world, drier then Earth but wetter then Mars or Vega. Scientists have calculated that 65% of Venus is covered by water, and that ninety-three percent of the water on Venus is salt water. Air pressure and Gravity are both approximately 85% that of "normal sea-level" conditions on Earth.

Vega / captured asteroids
Vega is the Mars analogue planet, dead or dying - just on the border of the inner habitable zone, and close enough to the asteroid belt to guarantee the capture of a number of asteroids from the main belt Vega is about as inhospitable as they come. Vega has no active core, and it has a surface water percentage of 15% liquid water on its surface which is quickly evaporating along with the decaying atmosphere.

Asteroid Belt

Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Pluto

This is really cool. Vega in particular interests me. I'm imagining a timeline where humans begin to settle it, as, even dying, it still has tens of thousands of years until it becomes completely barren. Humanity would have an incentive to try to terraform the planet, as instead of bringing a dead world back to life, it would be attempting to revive a dying world that yet still lives in some capacity.

 

[Sub Lord Hawk]

Wolf-Rayet blue giants produce large amounts of Fluorine. Here is a system which began as a W-F blue supergiant (something like the Pistol Star).

Ninlil, the neutron-star remnant of the former Wolf-Rayet blue giant.

I very much doubt it would be possible for this system to have any surface habitability whatsoever, as for sub surface, that would have to have a thick covering.

This is because of Ninhil, a neutron star, is.. well, a neutron star.
It will be spewing forth an horrific amount of radiation in various forms.

A W-R blue giant would rotate at fairly substantional speeds in the first place, and as core rotation accelerates as the star shrinks, this would lead to it being a pulsar at first (radio and x-ray from their magnetic poles).
As it came about from a high mass star to begin with, along with its rapid rotation, it would spew gamma ray bursts.
These would slow then stop over extremely long time periods, as the neutron star slows and then ceases rotation.

Then there is a gravity problem, a typical neutron star has a gravity of around 100 billion g . Planets orbiting the companion star won't be orbiting it for long, or would have very elleptical orbits.

and a small Type A white star (about the size of Sirius)

This star would not live long.
It should have a lifespan of 1 billion years before red giant phase (then white dwarf). Though this may well be decreased because of its accumulation of matter from Ninhil's supernova.
Such a time period may not be long enough for life of such complexity to evolve.

--
Lastly the supernova itself would have thrown the orbits into chaos.
Even if the companion keeps its planets (and they their moons), and it manages to keep in a binary orbit with Ninhil, the material left over would coalesce (if not all grabbed by something); causing further chaotic disruptions to the system.

--
All in all this sytem; with its history, shouldn't even be possible, let alone have life.

--
Please don't take this as condescending, just meant to be helpful .


Edit: Forgot to mention that; as a neutron star, it produces a lot of neutrinos. Also not good.

 

[Dorozhand]

I very much doubt it would be possible for this system to have any surface habitability whatsoever, as for sub surface, that would have to have a thick covering.

This is because of Ninhil, a neutron star, is.. well, a neutron star.
It will be spewing forth an horrific amount of radiation in various forms.

A W-R blue giant would rotate at fairly substantional speeds in the first place, and as core rotation accelerates as the star shrinks, this would lead to it being a pulsar at first (radio and x-ray from their magnetic poles).
As it came about from a high mass star to begin with, along with its rapid rotation, it would spew gamma ray bursts.
These would slow then stop over extremely long time periods, as the neutron star slows and then ceases rotation.

Then there is a gravity problem, a typical neutron star has a gravity of around 100 billion g . Planets orbiting the companion star won't be orbiting it for long, or would have very elleptical orbits.

This star would not live long.
It should have a lifespan of 1 billion years before red giant phase (then white dwarf). Though this may well be decreased because of its accumulation of matter from Ninhil's supernova.
Such a time period may not be long enough for life of such complexity to evolve.

--
Lastly the supernova itself would have thrown the orbits into chaos.
Even if the companion keeps its planets (and they their moons), and it manages to keep in a binary orbit with Ninhil, the material left over would coalesce (if not all grabbed by something); causing further chaotic disruptions to the system.

--
All in all this sytem; with its history, shouldn't even be possible, let alone have life.

--
Please don't take this as condescending, just meant to be helpful .


Edit: Forgot to mention that; as a neutron star, it produces a lot of neutrinos. Also not good.

Thanks for the advice Would things be different if Ninlil had somehow ejected itself out of the system and left everything alone? Or perhaps was very far away?

Also, I was picturing the supernova occurring long before the planets were fully formed, the proto-planetary disc (and the star) being bathed with the extra material.

As for shorter-lived stars, there are many interesting possibilities.
For example, photosynthesizing cyanobacteria evolved very early in Earth's history, perhaps within 50-100 million years of the Earth's formation. But it took them 3-3.5 billion years for them to rust the planet enough to allow molecular Oxygen to start accumulating in our atmosphere. Only after Oxygen was available in large quantities with its attendant 30-40 fold increase in energy availability did complex multicellular life become possible. It then took ~1 billion years to get from amoebas to humans.
Carl Sagan once published the apparent fact that there is not enough UV light hitting Earth to give it a 21% Oxygen atmosphere in and of itself. But with the presence of chlorophyll, allowing the usage of lower energy photons to manufacture the O2, it becomes possible. Perhaps a blue star with its huge amounts of UV light could have rusted an Earthlike planet a lot sooner and quicker, allowing free O2 to exist in its atmosphere much sooner, thus fostering complex life. Or maybe single cell life forms have some other unknown high energy metabolism source that fosters multicellular life a lot sooner.

I find this interesting because it begs the possibility of skipping the very long period between abiogenesis and multicellular life. With an atmosphere of CO2, and bacteria converting CO2 and HF into Formaldehyde and free Fluorine right from the beginning, we don't have an Oxygen Catastrophe to wipe out a previous generation of life and create a blank slate. The entire history of life on these particular planets would have the chemicals necessary for indefinite survival and stability already present, and the production of fluorine would cause no problems. This shortens the timescale significantly, especially when we take into account the extra UV radiation, which might be used to life's advantage rather than being a hindrance to its development.

 

[Maxwell Edison II]

With an atmosphere of CO2, and bacteria converting CO2 and HF into Formaldehyde and free Fluorine right from the beginning,

Chemistry fail. I'm sorry, but there is no nicer way to put it.

Free fluorine reacts with everything except noble gases. Carbon, carbon dioxide, silicon dioxide, alumina, water... Formaldehyde would probably react directly to COF2 possibly CF4.

If a planet for some reason had a massive concentration of fluorine in its crust, it'd still find its way to a calcium containing rock and the result would be fluorite.

Concerning CF4, I'm toying with the idea of future colonists on Mars creating artificial life in the form of plants who release it, the fluoride ions would be concentrated via ion exchanges and electrolysis, and then it'd form KHF2 and K2CO3 which is electrolyzed in molten phase via bioelectricity into (probably) CF4. CF4 is a ridiculosly powerful greenhouse gas, 11000x stronger than carbon dioxide and with an atmospheric half life in excess of 50 000 years. Such things evolving independently would however be impossible, since intermediary forms would have no evolutionary advantage.

 

[Dorozhand]

Chemistry fail. I'm sorry, but there is no nicer way to put it.

Free fluorine reacts with everything except noble gases. Carbon, carbon dioxide, silicon dioxide, alumina, water... Formaldehyde would probably react directly to COF2 possibly CF4.

If a planet for some reason had a massive concentration of fluorine in its crust, it'd still find its way to a calcium containing rock and the result would be fluorite.

And why is that a bad thing? We're used to everything having oxygen in it, on these worlds, everything what has oxygen would have fluorine instead.

 

[Maxwell Edison II]

And why is that a bad thing? We're used to everything having oxygen in it, on these worlds, everything what has oxygen would have fluorine instead.

Well, for one that is not how nucleosynthesis works, there is a reason the abundance of various elements tend to be roughly similar in the universe.

an odd atomic number (9)
http://www.webelements.com/fluorine/isotopes.html
one single stable isotope, and
http://cnx.org/content/m42640/latest/Figure_32_06_03a.jpg
20-Ne is favored, having a higher binding energy, so F "loves" eating protons, forming said element.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle
I guess this is where you got the F-world idea from, well, it isn't that simple. Look at the energies evolved at each step.

It can be said to be more likely to "stop" at oxygen due to oxygen giving off consideraby less energy when reacting with a proton. More precisely since it is a cyclic reaction, the equilibrium will favor such bottlenecks! This is also why Li, Be and B are so uncommon, they burn.
--

If someone ordered a "no oxygen, lots of fluorine" planet from the Magratheans, I think the result would be a planet where weird stuff would go down, the fluorine (replacing O2) would react with the omnipresent silicon to form a gas planet with SiF4 oceans and SiF4-skies, with some CF4 and also sulfur fluorides (SF4 and SF6 would form an interesting cycle) mixed in for good measure. FeFx, NiFx, AlF3 and so on would be present on the bottom of the deep global ocean, perhaps partially dissolving. If hydrogen was present, HF would be formed but it would react with Si, Ca, Al, Mg, etc and form fluoride salts and free hydrogen, which would escape.

 

[Sub Lord Hawk]

Thanks for the advice Would things be different if Ninlil had somehow ejected itself out of the system and left everything alone? Or perhaps was very far away?

Also, I was picturing the supernova occurring long before the planets were fully formed, the proto-planetary disc (and the star) being bathed with the extra material.

It might be able to eject the rest of the system before going boom (no sound in space I know, but surely it would be boom?).
I'm not sure of the upper limits for distance for a companion of such a star, but I believe it would be quite significant.
So if it is already a far flung companion, perhaps it could stay at the very edge of orbital possibilities? Then the proto-disc will still be able to accumulate a bit without too much disruption.

Chemistry fail. I'm sorry, but there is no nicer way to put it.

Free fluorine reacts with everything except noble gases. Carbon, carbon dioxide, silicon dioxide, alumina, water... Formaldehyde would probably react directly to COF2 possibly CF4.

If a planet for some reason had a massive concentration of fluorine in its crust, it'd still find its way to a calcium containing rock and the result would be fluorite.

Concerning CF4, I'm toying with the idea of future colonists on Mars creating artificial life in the form of plants who release it, the fluoride ions would be concentrated via ion exchanges and electrolysis, and then it'd form KHF2 and K2CO3 which is electrolyzed in molten phase via bioelectricity into (probably) CF4. CF4 is a ridiculosly powerful greenhouse gas, 11000x stronger than carbon dioxide and with an atmospheric half life in excess of 50 000 years. Such things evolving independently would however be impossible, since intermediary forms would have no evolutionary advantage.

CF4 is damaging to the heart and displaces air because of its density. How would you counteract that? Small but significant amount? Something else?

 

[Maxwell Edison II]

It might be able to eject the rest of the system before going boom (no sound in space I know, but surely it would be boom?).
I'm not sure of the upper limits for distance for a companion of such a star, but I believe it would be quite significant.
So if it is already a far flung companion, perhaps it could stay at the very edge of orbital possibilities? Then the proto-disc will still be able to accumulate a bit without too much disruption.




CF4 is damaging to the heart and displaces air because of its density. How would you counteract that? Small but significant amount? Something else?

CO2 also displaces air, if it is released in a certain way, the way animals release CO2 it doesn't accumulate near ground level in ventilated spaces. Consider that even heavier molecules like freon-12 make their way all the way to the ozone layer.

TWA (=safety exposure limit) is something like 2,5mg/m^3. TWA's are usually defined by a normal work-day, 8 hours, so it'd be lower if the exposure was constant.

If we imagine 0,25mg/m^3, then that is something like 0,25/1250 000 = 0,2 ppm. Which, since it is 6500x stronger than CO2 as a greenhouse gas means it is the equivalent of 1300ppm CO2. Right now on Earth CO2 is at ~385ppm.

EDIT: Scratch the above! Apparently the relationship between CO2 and delta radiative forcing is logarithmic, while for CFC's (and presumably "CF's" like CF4) it is linear. This means that if a certain level of CO2 raises the temp with x degrees, and (in another atmosphere) another level of CF4 would do the same, quadrupling the CO2 means the temp rises by x*ln(4) while for CF4 it rises by 4. This makes sense, it explains why the CFC's are even mentioned despite being such a small part of our atmosphere.

 

[Dorozhand]

So, the most common criticism of Silicon in lieu of Carbon is the fact that SiO2 is a solid. What if a silicon based life form, rather than conventional respiration , secreted the solid silica from its outer surface as a protective shell, shedding it as needed?

Respiration would, of course, have to then be based from the skin entirely, which would entail a respiratory system very different from anything on earth.