Atmosphere

Puke · #1 January 31st, 2001, 05:47 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Cybes:
firstly, some chemical reaction i can't remember offhand cracks free carbon off of methane, creating a carbon 'rain'. the carbon continues straight through the 'metallic' hydrogen liquid, and forms a solid core. the pressure and heat then convert it to diamond.

the theory only really 'works' for gas giants with a significant portion of methane, though.

um-kay. cool. but why would the carbon not liquify rather than crystalize? of course, presuming that the carbon 'rain' is more like carbon 'snow' or 'hail'

sorry, dont mean to be turning the thread into science class.

[This message has been edited by Puke (edited 31 January 2001).]

Cybes · #2 January 31st, 2001, 05:59 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Puke:
um-kay. cool. but why would the carbon not liquify rather than crystalize? of course, presuming that the carbon 'rain' is more like carbon 'snow' or 'hail'

well, i'd guess those terms are pretty equivalent, given that carbon doesn't seem to have a liquid form that we know of. it can be a gas in combination with other gasseous elements, but not by itself... pure carbon only does 'free' (like soot), 'graphite', or 'diamond' - as far as we know, of course.

as an aside, this theory was indirectly referenced in Arthur Clarke's "2015" (title?), after the jovian sun ignited, shards of the core diamond fell upon the surface of europa. a research ship then landed on the planet (for reasons i don''t remember), and there was some scene involving the greedier members of the crew rushing around collecting fragments.

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"Just think of it as Evolution in action" - 'Oath of Fealty', by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle.

Puke · #3 January 31st, 2001, 08:05 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Cybes:
well, i'd guess those terms are pretty equivalent, given that carbon doesn't seem to have a liquid form that we know of. it can be a gas in combination with other gasseous elements, but not by itself... pure carbon only does 'free' (like soot), 'graphite', or 'diamond' - as far as we know, of course.

acording to the periodic table at
http://chemlab.pc.maricopa.edu/periodic/C.html

carbon has a melting point of 4100 Kelvins. I am not aware of any element without a melting point, although we dont have enough heat and pressure to melt carbon anywhere near the surface of the earth, i would not doubt the molten core would hit 4100K. much less jupiter. granted, its much harder to melt than say, PLUTONIUM (ironically, cubic zirconiums are harder to melt), and I dont mean to be an ***, but I am having a hard time with this theory.

woodelf · #4 January 31st, 2001, 01:32 PM

Quick question on Atmospheric Converters; is the time required the same for all size planets? Wouldn't it make sense for a Huge planet to take longer than a tiny moonish sized one? If this isn't happening now, could it be modded to happen? I'm not fresh on my atmospheric science, but that seems realistic.

raynor · #5 January 31st, 2001, 03:14 PM

quote:
Originally posted by woodelf:
Quick question on Atmospheric Converters; is the time required the same for all size planets? Wouldn't it make sense for a Huge planet to take longer than a tiny moonish sized one? If this isn't happening now, could it be modded to happen? I'm not fresh on my atmospheric science, but that seems realistic.

Yeppers. Same time for all size planets. Some folks recommend that you just build the plants on large and huge world for that very reason. If you spend the resources building the plant on a tiny world, you just get 4 extra facilities. If you build it on a huge world, you get 20!

Building the plants on anything but a 'none' atmosphere world takes too long. Much easier to just capture enemy empire colonists who breathe the right atmosphere and transplant them.

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 31 January 2001).]

rdouglass · #6 January 31st, 2001, 03:16 PM

Woodelf, yes the time for atmospheric conVersion is the same reguardless of planet size. Its just that your "return on investment" is lower with smaller planets. I personally don't convert any planet other than huge and large.

As to the theory that Gas Giants have a diamond core, I'm having a hard time understanding that. If that was the case, wouldn't the earth's core also be diamond? IIRC, the earth has an iron core 'cause iron has a specific gravity (I think that's the term) greater than carbon. Its not as if we have no carbon on this planet. If that's the case, wouldn't the core (of any celestial body) be made up of the "heaviest" element in the planet makeup? Isn't that why a rock sinks and hydrogen gas floats upward? I'm definitely not a chemistry expert but my common sense leads me to believe that's the way it should be.

I know this thread is going off target and probably should be elsewhere, but I definitely am curious as to the answer...

EDIT: Oops, sorry raynor. Didn't mean to "double post" your answer. We seem to be on at the same time a lot lately...

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 31 January 2001).]

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 31 January 2001).]

raynor · #7 January 31st, 2001, 03:19 PM

As long as everyone is in a frenzy over realism, I say that gas giant troops should get a 1000% bonus when attacking non-gas giant troops. Because the gravity on a gas giant has to be at least 10x that on the other worlds, they should be able to kick butt against their wimpier 1 standard G colonists/troops.

(Never mind that troops are more like cargo items stored in the planet that have nothing to do with colonists and are therefore atmosphere non-specific...)