Moons

[Windborne]

Does anyone else find it really annoying that the moons in the game are

A) Always small or tiny no matter how big the planet is

B) always have no atmosphere

It seems to me that I should be able to find moons with atmospheres, twin worlds, and so on, interesting places to explore, not just one repeat of earths moon after the next.

[Spyder]

1) If they were too big, they'd escape the gravitational pull of their planet and either float away or create their own orbit and become planets.

2) The only moons of which I have heard that may be habitable (ie, have some sort of atmosphere) were around huge gas giants (Jupiter).

2) The gravitational pull of small & tiny moons would be prohibitive to maintaining an atmosphere. There does seem to be a descrepancy here as the moons are the same size as the small & tiny planets, however, I imagine that this was done in the interests of expediency.

My two cents worth




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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

[Spyder]

By the way....I THINK I remember seeing a moon with ruins on it once....



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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

[Sinapus]

quote:

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Originally posted by Spyder:
By the way....I THINK I remember seeing a moon with ruins on it once....

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Ruins on small moons orbiting a planet has happened more than once in the games I've played.



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--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

[Windborne]

Four moons, Io, Ganymede, titan, and tritan have atmopsheres in our own solar system, in addition to this the moon of pluto is so large that many astronomers consider it a seperate orbiting planet, being slightly over half as large as its mate.

Statistically this is pretty good proof that moons with atmpospheres and binary planetary systems not only exist but are fairly common, after all the solar system itself only has nine planets.

Of course I have to admit that the four moons with atmopheres are around the gas giants, as are most moons in our system.

Breaking down our solar system we have

4 rock planets
4 gas giants
1 ice planet
an astroid belt

The smaller rock planets have a smaller number moons, Earth having one and Mars having two. The ice planet has one moon almost it's own size, and the gas giants (which are as numerous as the rock planets) have countless moons. The average gas giant having ten to twenty moons.

It's not surprising that the few moons with atmospheres, and many more with other interesting features, orbit the gas giants rather then the few moons found around the rock planets, or the lone ice planet (pluto)


[This message has been edited by Windborne (edited 01 March 2001).]

[dmm]

I think they ought to have giants that are too large to inhabit, but with habitable moons. Would make for fun tactical combat.

[Daynarr]

Well, I guess you will be interested in my new quadrant mod then. I have made 36 new standard systems that have more logic in placement (read - they are less random), so there won't be any ice oxygen planets right next to bright white star, or lots of nebulas in ancient quadrant (it is a theory that new stars are created in nebulas and they should be very rare in and old and dying galaxy - they are not typical storms). There are things you mentioned (in small quantities of course) like moons that have atmosphere and moons that have small size (or both). There are also two new star types - White Giant and Red Dwarf with their picture. The mod is FINISHED, but I am playtesting it now.
Btw. it can be used with Modpack and any other non-quadrant mod.

[Spyder]

Right you are, but, as I said most would not necessarily have atmospheres. The only one large enough to be called a planet seems to be in a binary planet symbiosis (gravitationally speaking) with Pluto supporting that if its too big, it becomes its own planet. But in all cases (I believe) the moons are Rock...no gas moons, no ice moons (probably are, but, this is further into Astronomy than I ventured ) and very few (comparatively) with atmospheres; all of which are around our largest gas giant.

In most cases the mass of the moon simply prohibits the ability to maintain an atmosphere...I have no idea why Jupiter's moons do...but, it takes a significant gravitational pull to hold any type of gas (atmosphere) in orbit and obviously they have it (with mother Jupiter's help, I'd guess).

But, back to the game....just build an atmosphere renewer on it and use it as a storage facility & shipyard. That is what I use all the Tiny planets for.



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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

[Suicide Junkie]

There is no way that a planet could help a moon hold on to atmosphere. Jupiter's moons are just big, thats all.

Tiny planets would almost all be 'none' atmospheres (as well as moons)

Small planets would usually have atmospheres, and some of the biggest moons would be small planet size.

Assuming Earth-mars-venus type planets are the small end of medium sized (SE4 homeworld size)

[apache]

Um, you guys better review basic astronomy. Those 4 moons with atmospheres are not all around Jupiter. Io and Ganymede are, but Titan orbits Saturn, and Triton orbits Neptune.
Also, it is wrong to call Pluto's moon, Charon, a planet, because a planet is a large body orbiting a star. Moons orbit planets. And in general, anything that orbits something else is a satellite.
And there are ice moons in our solar system. Europa (Jupiter) is the most famous, since it is believed to be able to support life under its ice layer.