???
That's an ELW, not WW.
Water World with Land Mass?
- Thread starter [VR] optimal_909
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That's an ELW, not WW.
oops...good point, got carried off into the wrong direction..
Many of those too though, I'll add the next one I come across...
I always assumed that earth was a water world. Over 50% of the surface is covered with water. Meets my definitions. Happens to have an oxygen rich nitrogen atmosphere that humans can breathe, rendering it earth-like. I guess people get too excited seeing a possible ELW and get disappointed enough when it's "just" a water world. "Boo! False advertising! I wasted my time approaching this planet! Boooo! It should be completely blue!" etc.
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That's all ocean, no land masses.
Way back in 1.0.or 1.1 I found my first water world in the black and it looked like this
I've not seen one like that for ages, they may no longer exist (maybe someone near that system can go and see what it looks like now, the sysmap now looks a lot less green than that picture would imply).
Way back in 1.0.or 1.1 I found my first water world in the black and it looked like this
I've not seen one like that for ages, they may no longer exist (maybe someone near that system can go and see what it looks like now, the sysmap now looks a lot less green than that picture would imply).
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Those old pics of Water Worlds do look cool - and I wish more Water Worlds still looked like this. They must have changed the modelling sometime around version 1.3, since I've been playing since then (July 2015) and never saw one like that.
I also assume this is the reason nobody originally noticed that Capitol, the capital planet of the Empire, was actually a water world and not Earth-like, until after water worlds were graphically changed into water-covered worlds. After people complained that the Imperial Palace was now underwater, they changed Capitol to a normal Earth-like.
That would sadly not surprise me. So instead of telling the complainers that "water world" did not literally mean "water-covered world" and that they should listen more closely to the sounds the planet made on the system map, they changed the physical parameters of the universe to make it more obvious in every case which cloudy-blue planets were water worlds and which were Earth-likes.
A pure oxygen atmosphere won't burn just by itself. There needs to be something combustible there, for a fire to start. And on an ocean planet, there's nothing left to burn - water is already "burnt hydrogen".
As for landmasses here, I can't see anything in the pic that qualifies as a "landmass", or even an area of shallow water outlining an underwater continent. Any colour variation could be just the super-thin clouds floating in the super-thin atmosphere.
The most logic-defying water worlds are, of course, the ones with "no atmosphere". At all. Sorry, but the laws of physics tell us you need to have an atmosphere to have liquid water; you don't need much of one (the deeper parts of Mars probably have enough pressure to qualify) but you do need some atmosphere. Fall below the triple point, and water goes straight from solid ice to a gas, without melting. Just a minor flaw in the stellar forge. Those deep blue airless marbles sure do look pretty, though.
I also assume this is the reason nobody originally noticed that Capitol, the capital planet of the Empire, was actually a water world and not Earth-like, until after water worlds were graphically changed into water-covered worlds. After people complained that the Imperial Palace was now underwater, they changed Capitol to a normal Earth-like.
That would sadly not surprise me. So instead of telling the complainers that "water world" did not literally mean "water-covered world" and that they should listen more closely to the sounds the planet made on the system map, they changed the physical parameters of the universe to make it more obvious in every case which cloudy-blue planets were water worlds and which were Earth-likes.
A pure oxygen atmosphere won't burn just by itself. There needs to be something combustible there, for a fire to start. And on an ocean planet, there's nothing left to burn - water is already "burnt hydrogen".
As for landmasses here, I can't see anything in the pic that qualifies as a "landmass", or even an area of shallow water outlining an underwater continent. Any colour variation could be just the super-thin clouds floating in the super-thin atmosphere.
The most logic-defying water worlds are, of course, the ones with "no atmosphere". At all. Sorry, but the laws of physics tell us you need to have an atmosphere to have liquid water; you don't need much of one (the deeper parts of Mars probably have enough pressure to qualify) but you do need some atmosphere. Fall below the triple point, and water goes straight from solid ice to a gas, without melting. Just a minor flaw in the stellar forge. Those deep blue airless marbles sure do look pretty, though.
Not that high if you look at the pressure. 91% of 0.03 atmospheres means the oxygen available at sea level is a tenth of what you find on Earth, you'd struggle to get a roaring fire going.
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I've always just assumed that they have liquid oceans beneath a thick frozen crust. Water based life could exist on such a planet, and that's all you need to be a water world.
Europa should be Water World then too!
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Europa should be Water World then too!
Yes, sorry, but the ice-crust theory doesn't work, because an atmosphere-less planet with a hypothetically life-bearing ocean beneath a thick ice crust, or even a fairly thin ice crust, is the perfect definition of an "ice world", of which Europa is the archetype.
Besides, those airless water worlds are deep, deep blue, almost indigo-coloured. Even a thin ice coat would look white from space, or a best pastel cyan-coloured.
Europa should be Water World then too!
If there is actually carbon based life in that ocean then, by ED naming, it would be...
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In ED terminology a terrestrial world with carbon based life is a Water World (unless it has a human breathable atmosphere in which case it's an Earth-like). Why assume the crust is pure water ice as well?
Not quite, no. a Water World has the following characteristics:
- Has carbon-based life
- Has a water-based hydrosphere (if it were an ammonia-based hydrosphere, then it would be an Ammonia world with carbon-based life; and water and ammonia are the only two possible life-supporting hydrospheres in ED).
- Has some kind of surface condition (atmosphere, gravity, temperature) that precludes it being an Earth-like.
In ED science, you need a hydrosphere to have a life-bearing planet; dry planets are always lifeless. So, since it's not an Ammonia world, there must be some kind of water-based ocean on the planet surface.
When water freezes, there occurs the "freezing-out effect". Meaning that the frozen seawater is made of relatively pure water, even if the seawater has rather high levels of salt or other contaminants (such as organic compounds or other "ices"). This means that, if the blue stuff is a planet-wide ocean made of mostly water, then if/when it freezes (and it must either freeze or boil if there is no atmosphere), then the frozen surface will be (relatively) pure water.
As is the case on Europa. The surface is quite pure water ice, but the postulated subsurface ocean is expected to be even saltier than that of Earth.
Of course, we'll never know what the "surface" of an airless water world is actually supposed to be until we're allowed to land on it.
Carbon-water based life is indeed what I meant.
The ice crystals themselves will be pure water, but there could well be veins of liquid water within the ice and that could be sufficient to sustain a mat of photosynthesising organisms in the upper layer of the ice. Some of the most archaic forms of photosynthesis on earth use a purple pigment - and one of the examples that still make use of it (bacteriorhodopsin) is halobacterium halobium which thrives in water with extreme salinity - and the small amounts of liquid water present within a crust of ice frozen out of an already salty ocean will be extremely salty - so stick a mat of something using a similar pigment in the subsurface ice and hey presto, you get your lovely blue colour.
Admittedly, it does seem much more likely that the graphics and the planet descriptions just aren't lining up and we're seeing a deep ocean texture on planets that can't have a liquid ocean on the surface because they've got no atmosphere.
The ice crystals themselves will be pure water, but there could well be veins of liquid water within the ice and that could be sufficient to sustain a mat of photosynthesising organisms in the upper layer of the ice. Some of the most archaic forms of photosynthesis on earth use a purple pigment - and one of the examples that still make use of it (bacteriorhodopsin) is halobacterium halobium which thrives in water with extreme salinity - and the small amounts of liquid water present within a crust of ice frozen out of an already salty ocean will be extremely salty - so stick a mat of something using a similar pigment in the subsurface ice and hey presto, you get your lovely blue colour.
Admittedly, it does seem much more likely that the graphics and the planet descriptions just aren't lining up and we're seeing a deep ocean texture on planets that can't have a liquid ocean on the surface because they've got no atmosphere.
Went there last night and it's now a featureless blue ball.
I've seen ELW lookalikes with what appeared as an ocean, but upon closer inspection the blue areas appearded to be land as well, with craters and other features.
Can anyone visit a former example, like the one discovered by CMDR Jackie Silver?
I guess this is close to the bubble and I'm 50kly away from Sol.
Yeah
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It's a shame FDev did this. They could have differentiated them vs. ELWs through land masses without greenery.
Water is pretty abundant in the Universe - its just tricker to find environments near its triple point.
One description of a "water world" (RL) is a rocky core encased in a water body - rather than a rocky planet with abundant surface water. I certainly wouldn't expect to see rocky land surfaces in this scenario as the oceans go "all the way down". Think more like the structure of a gas giant than a terrestrial world.
Just because a water world is make up predominatly of water, it doesn't restrict it to liquid form. If conditions are right, land masses of ice may exist - native life could crawl, wriggle, or flap its way up the shores. Water makes pretty good rock when its cold enough.
The environment of a deep ocean world may also be severely lacking in minerals - another essential for life (life likes mud). Here its limited here to soluable minerals aborbed from impacts or the atmosphere, as the rocky core is pretty much out of reach for any life dependant on light (and there would be a general lack of vulcanism as an alterante source of energy).
But I guess if surface algi can get a foot hold (pseudopodia grip), then a food chain would be possible.
One description of a "water world" (RL) is a rocky core encased in a water body - rather than a rocky planet with abundant surface water. I certainly wouldn't expect to see rocky land surfaces in this scenario as the oceans go "all the way down". Think more like the structure of a gas giant than a terrestrial world.
Just because a water world is make up predominatly of water, it doesn't restrict it to liquid form. If conditions are right, land masses of ice may exist - native life could crawl, wriggle, or flap its way up the shores. Water makes pretty good rock when its cold enough.
The environment of a deep ocean world may also be severely lacking in minerals - another essential for life (life likes mud). Here its limited here to soluable minerals aborbed from impacts or the atmosphere, as the rocky core is pretty much out of reach for any life dependant on light (and there would be a general lack of vulcanism as an alterante source of energy).
But I guess if surface algi can get a foot hold (pseudopodia grip), then a food chain would be possible.
The most scary thing I saw in here is that your planet is really strange.
Due to having no atmosphere it shouldn't have no water at all. Hydrogen is binding with Oxygen only because of existing preasure.
if preasure drops to zero its vapourizing. Loosing atmosphere will mean this world is getting quite cold quickly (an Icy one) and to held the temperature
it indicates to be near a solar object. But then solar winds will blew away everything loose. So you should keep this rare diamond of strange planets.
Regards,
Miklos
I would really like to see worlds like this implemented into the game. I think ELWs look a bit to samey right now
I'm not saying all WWs should feature land, simply that there should be WWs with land too. On the other hand, I think there should be water worlds without life (in other words, HMCs that are covered with water).