Problem Gliese 581 Planetary System

[T.Neo]

Earth? You'll get drowned, infected, attacked, mugged...

Mars? You'll get sublimed, landslided, dust stormed...

Titan? You'll get frozen to near absolute zero in a pool of natural gas...

It's space. Of course it's a harsh place!

Importance for manned spaceflight is only as good as the importance of the mission or goal at hand.

 

[Axel]

:lol: Yor comment about earth is the best. Maybe you are right, that earth is the most dangerous place of all, because the presence of a voilent race,
called "humans". Sadly but truely. But maybe this is changing, when we begin with interstellar travel or we have to change us for beginning interstellar travel for having a chance to survive in the universe for a very long time.

 

[fsci123]

A question, why you all invest so mutch work in this system? This system is maybe of astronomical interest, but not for space travel, what we do in orbiter. There is no planet which enables a human surface mission or settling. The masses are to big for walking, the smallest with moderate temperatures has 5 earth masses(!). Only very strong men could maybe walk there, but its not very healthy for the body. And i try to imagine what for a gigantic rocket/spaceship we would need, to go back to space from it.
So orbital bases would be the only realistic bases there.
So create better systems with planets/moons in about earth size, smaller or maybe a little bigger, around gas giants in habitable zones or alone, fictive or not.

THERE are 4 rocky planets... 3 of them in the hab zone... 3 of them possibly had water. One is cold one is hot one is just right...
GL581 5 rocky... 3 in hab... look at the stats and there is a high chance of life thats what is valuable...

 

[T.Neo]

Not quite. Gliese 581 g is... unconfirmed, and it's looking to become quite a scientific controversy. To my knowledge nobody outside of the original study claims to have detected it, suggesting that the signal is noise, and there's also evidence that the original team was not too thorough in checking their observations and had used erroneous data analysis. Meanshile Vogt has claimed that some data was unfairly manipulated and that if you use a model of the system where the planets have circular orbits, the data works out as having detected planets f and g.

I want Gliese 581 g to be real just as much as the next person, and this news really, really disappoints me, but my point is that we can't call it until there's an unanimous agreement that the data indicates the presence of planet g. Which is looking doubtful at best.

Furthermore Gliese 581 c is definitely a runaway greenhouse, so I doubt there is any life there...

 

[Izack]

I'm tired of the way the word 'realism' is thrown around in these discussions, and how its meaning is entirely subjective to the context. What is 'realism' here, talking about a planetary system 20 lightyears away which no one has ever seen as anything more than tiny varying points of radiation, as replicated in a spaceflight simulator which doesn't care about the properties of a planet other than its location, mass, radius, and a few values regarding the atmosphere?

 

[T.Neo]

Oh, no, it's perfectly fine.

Let's fly to Gliese 581 e, as a pinkish polka-dotted ball, maybe with an image of a tyrannosaurus around 23 north, 48 west.

The rotation period can be 5 hours, not to mention the year being wrong as the orbit parameters now put the planet at a 1 AU orbit. Density and mass too, are incorrect, as Gliese 581 e is now a third the mass of Earth, with around the density of an airliner.

After you've visited Gliese 581 e, why not pop over to Gliese 581 b, a lovely eden-like world with magneta oceans and cyan foliage. This planet is only about a tenth the mass of Earth and has the density of Platinum, not to mention an anomalous neon green horizon haze.

Next, stop over at Gliese 581 c, a 10 Earth mass planet covered in boiling syrup, with over 100 moons, 30 of which are habitable with climates ranging from steamy jungles to freezing lava fields.

After that, a quick hop to Gliese 581 d, a desert asteroid some 500 km in diameter, where you can find dwarf elephants and purple conifers.

Last but not least is Gliese 581 g, a planet that nobody knows the location or even the existential status of! This is theorised to be due to a Vulcan cloaking device set up in the year 1455 CE...

Seriously. If we don't care about realism, which I can explain in the context of planetary systems, specifically planetary systems based on real planetary systems, here:

- Orbital parameters correct to the data recorded.

- Rotational elements based on what would be probable for the body (for example, factoring in tidal drag and the potential for tidal locking).

- Atmospheric parameters based on planetological evidence, models and speculation, or if possible, the data recorded.

- If any fictional bodies are present (or, all the bodies in a fictional system) they should conform to planetological evidence, models and speculation based around things like planetary accretion, etc.

- Masses correct to data, densities correct to data (if any, uncommon), or based on planetological evidence, models and speculation of planetary composition.

- Graphical data correct to speculative planetary attributes, and planetological evidence, models and speculation, and if life is present, widespread and influential, biological evidence, models and speculation.

It is not subjective. A lot of this is speculation, but that is also just extrapolation of current planetological evidence and theory- that is related to what we see, measure and detect in our very own solar system and in many cases our own planet. Which is far better than "ok, I'll give this planet the density of Crème brûlée, cause it's cool".

If we wish to throw realism out, we might as well make the HRSI tiles of the stock Atlantis dayglow pink, relocate KSC to Trinidad, and put the apoapsis of the Moon somewhere near GEO.

 

[jedidia]

and purple conifers

I had to look that up... :lol:

I agree with Isaak that it's all very akin to a certain debate about wheather an african swallow might be able to carry a coconut, but I don't think such discussions are superfluous. On the contrary, they are vital for immersion, especially if the target audience is a bit better educated about such things than the average joe. I mean, if we already make systems with existing exoplanets, we can as well do them in a way that they have the (however slight) chance to be right. They should at least be possible.

 

[Axel]

@Izack wrote

the properties of a planet other than its location, mass, radius, and a few values regarding the atmosphere.

We know alot more, we don't speculate here, we use the knowledge of the scientists, i do it so.
Beside the values you wrote: location,mass,radius,atmosphere we have
further the orbital elements of the planets and the temperature, because we have all important dates of the star Gliese581 itself. And we know the rotation cycles of the planets.
Because the low distance of the planets at the habitable zone to its star they all have a fixed rotation, that means they showing the same one side of its surface to the star, which further meant that there are no moons around this planets. With special power computers (which we use for earth weather calculations) we can calculate the weather conditions at the planets, so the computer say us whats up there. Ofcourse we are giving the computer the dates, there could be a error.
The best way is to build big telescopes, to study the atmospheres of the planets. We can although study its surface with a resolution of 1km per pixel or less, when we send a telescope probe to the gravity focus of our sun, which is located in 550 AU from the sun to the direction of Gliese581.
This focus works like a huge lense. With some RCS actions at the gravity focus we could study the complet Gliese system. And the probe coming from earth has not the deaccelerate its high velocity, because the focus goes to infinitely.
A advanced nuclear electric plasma thruster could fly this way in about 15-20 years, when we send many probes to many gravity focusses we would have in 15-20 years a huge knowledge of all important stars in our near. With some more drive actions than RCS a single probe could study more stars. That would be a good intermediate step, before we start interstellar probes.

 

[fsci123]

@Izack wrote



We know alot more, we don't speculate here, we use the knowledge of the scientists, i do it so.
Beside the values you wrote: location,mass,radius,atmosphere we have
further the orbital elements of the planets and the temperature, because we have all important dates of the star Gliese581 itself. And we know the rotation cycles of the planets.
Because the low distance of the planets at the habitable zone to its star they all have a fixed rotation, that means they showing the same one side of its surface to the star, which further meant that there are no moons around this planets. With special power computers (which we use for earth weather calculations) we can calculate the weather conditions at the planets, so the computer say us whats up there. Ofcourse we are giving the computer the dates, there could be a error.
The best way is to build big telescopes, to study the atmospheres of the planets. We can although study its surface with a resolution of 1km per pixel or less, when we send a telescope probe to the gravity focus of our sun, which is located in 550 AU from the sun to the direction of Gliese581.
This focus works like a huge lense. With some RCS actions at the gravity focus we could study the complet Gliese system. And the probe coming from earth has not the deaccelerate its high velocity, because the focus goes to infinitely.
A advanced nuclear electric plasma thruster could fly this way in about 15-20 years, when we send many probes to many gravity focusses we would have in 15-20 years a huge knowledge of all important stars in our near. With some more drive actions than RCS a single probe could study more stars. That would be a good intermediate step, before we start interstellar probes.

WHAT?

 

[T.Neo]

I agree with Isaak that it's all very akin to a certain debate about wheather an african swallow might be able to carry a coconut, but I don't think such discussions are superfluous. On the contrary, they are vital for immersion, especially if the target audience is a bit better educated about such things than the average joe. I mean, if we already make systems with existing exoplanets, we can as well do them in a way that they have the (however slight) chance to be right. They should at least be possible.

Indeed. Of course there's no saying that one or another portrayal is what's up there, but the goal is to make something that's most likely to be up there, or at least, what could be up there.

I think it is pretty bad to have scientific hints or clues on what might be happening, and then ignore them. Constructing an exoplanet system is like a paleoartist, painting a picture of an extinct organism. A lot of what that person does is highly speculative, but still based on real paleontology and biology.

We know very little about these systems, it is a real pity, and the mystery of our age. But the scientific community are not morons when it comes to planetary science...

 

[Izack]

:facepalm:
Not only did I mix this thread up with another one, I missed a whole page of the conversation. Previous comment withdrawn as irrelevant, sorry. :beathead:

We know alot more, we don't speculate here, we use the knowledge of the scientists, i do it so.
Beside the values you wrote: location,mass,radius,atmosphere we have
further the orbital elements of the planets and the temperature, because we have all important dates of the star Gliese581 itself. And we know the rotation cycles of the planets.
Because the low distance of the planets at the habitable zone to its star they all have a fixed rotation, that means they showing the same one side of its surface to the star, which further meant that there are no moons around this planets. With special power computers (which we use for earth weather calculations) we can calculate the weather conditions at the planets, so the computer say us whats up there. Ofcourse we are giving the computer the dates, there could be a error.
The best way is to build big telescopes, to study the atmospheres of the planets. We can although study its surface with a resolution of 1km per pixel or less, when we send a telescope probe to the gravity focus of our sun, which is located in 550 AU from the sun to the direction of Gliese581.
This focus works like a huge lense. With some RCS actions at the gravity focus we could study the complet Gliese system. And the probe coming from earth has not the deaccelerate its high velocity, because the focus goes to infinitely.
A advanced nuclear electric plasma thruster could fly this way in about 15-20 years, when we send many probes to many gravity focusses we would have in 15-20 years a huge knowledge of all important stars in our near. With some more drive actions than RCS a single probe could study more stars. That would be a good intermediate step, before we start interstellar probes.

I'm sorry, I don't follow. Probably the language barrier...

 

[Axel]

@ Izack and fsci123

What do you guys not understand?

 

[Izack]

What do you mean by 'gravity focus?' That's what's baffling me, anyway. :shrug:

 

[Axel]

Every strong mass curves the space, black holes very extremly, we speaking about a "gravitiy lens" then. A gravitiy lens has physicaly the same rules like a glass lens, it bundless/focusses light to one point. We can see the light from stars behind our sun, because our sun curves the space too and the light goes around the sun to us. If we go/fly tho the focus point, where all light beams are crossing, then we can use it as a gigantic telescope with a very high resolution. That point is for our sun 550 astronomical units away from our sun, in every direction. The sun must be between Gliese581 and the probe parking at the focus, for great images of Gliese.

Ok here a Link i googled fast, maybe you understandit better.

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=176

 

[fsci123]

Update

Cloud Layers: Complete
Textures: Complete
Bases: Almost Complete
Scenarios: Complete
Ummu Compat: Complete
Config Tuneup: Complete
Progress: 87.5%
ETC: <30days

 

[fsci123]

Textures redone...

 

[jedidia]

nice work!