New planets found so far - Aren't they all Gas Giants?

[jpinard]

Just curious. I thought I'd heard that all the new planets found (in real life)so far were Gas Giants. Could be a limitation in technology? Can anyone confirm?

In the game, I'm wondering if there is any way to have the moons with atmospheres, and also be a selection of rock or ice since that is the way it is in our solar system.

[jc173]

I'm not sure if there is a way to modify the moons, my guess would be there probably is. There's a mod in the archive here where the designer removed the moons. So he'd probably have a better idea than I do. Can't remember the name of the mod offhand but it shouldn't be too hard to find.

[This message has been edited by jc173 (edited 12 March 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

Adding moons with atmospheres is a simple matter of adding to the SystemTypes.txt file. Copy a moon, and set its size to small instead of tiny, and set its atmosphere to whatever.

Although you could have tiny moons with atmospheres, it would be odd IMO.

As for all the new planets we've found, They all are larger than jupiter, so it would be nearly impossible for them not to be gas giants.
Note that we don't know what the planets are like, other than their mass and orbit. It is just hard to see how a world bigger than jupiter could form as a rock or ice world.
All the planets are excessively huge because of the way they are found. We don't have the current ability to detect earth-size planets in general.

Methods for finding planets:
- red-shift wobble: as the planet goes around the star, it tugs the star towards and away from us, leaving a periodic shift in the color of the light from the star.
- Spacial wobble: It may be possible to detect tiny variations in the stars path against the backgroud, as the planet tugs on it.
- Light Intensity: When the planet passes between the sun and us, it will block a small fraction of the light, and the star will appear to dim. This only works if the planet's orbit is aligned right, though.
- Direct imaging: Look at the star and blot out the light from the star. If you see anything, you may have a planet. Note that this cannot be done conventionally, since the separation of the star and planet is too small. Interferometry, can be used in this way, though. With two telescopes, you can get the light from the star to interfere and cancel itself, leaving only the reflected light from the planet which is at a slightly different distance.

[geoschmo]

Jpinard, As suicide Junkie says, this is oen of the easier changes to make. In fact here's a file to do just that. Save your old SystemTypes.txt file and rename this as SystemTypes.txt and put it in the data folder.

All I did was change some of the entries for moons to Aptmosphere Any instead of None. I did not change all of the moons, You will have one moon in each system with moons that has a chance for aptmosphere. I also left the size as tiny.

Let me know if you like it.

Geo

[henk brouwer]

quote:

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Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
[b]
As for all the new planets we've found, They all are larger than jupiter, so it would be nearly impossible for them not to be gas giants.
Note that we don't know what the planets are like, other than their mass and orbit. It is just hard to see how a world bigger than jupiter could form as a rock or ice world.
All the planets are excessively huge because of the way they are found. We don't have the current ability to detect earth-size planets in general.
[b]

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For a good site on extrasolar planets ( sums up the planets found and has art-work on what these worlds could look like) go to
http://www.jtwinc.com/extrasolar/

Actually the first planets ever found outside our solar system were earth sized planets, they are however not in orbit of a normal star, but orbit around a pulsar. this makes them easy to find, but it also means these planets would be completely inhospitable to life.
(follow the link to pulsar planets on extrasolar visions)

[jpinard]

Wow, that site is really cool. Thanks!

[Windborne]

Be nice if I we had some more sector types to simulate hostile pulsors (all the planets deadly?) clumps of planetoids with no star, primordial systems, etc . . .

[jpinard]

Geoschmo, thanks for the test file!