But I'll take it...also...28.5% argon....
It could have been ringed....
- Thread starter CMDR CHIGGY VONRICTOFEN
- Start date
Yea those gg companion ELW's are often good ring candidates. This one is quite law on mass - if it was over like 1.5 or 2 Earth masses it'd probably have rings.
Oh hey, another gas giant ELM! Nice one. Interesting to see that it has a high concentration of argon in its atmosphere too: I wonder if that's more likely to happen with such configurations. So far, we have six such ELMs on the list, and two have argon - this would make it 3 out of 7. However, that sample size is so small that no conclusions can be gleamed from it - still, it might be something to keep an eye on too.
On the other hand, divers would likely have problems breathing Chiggyworld's air at shallower depths than they would in case of Earth's air, as argon is more narcotic than nitrogen.
Hm, depends on what you mean to ask. Neither nitrogen nor argon are poisonous per se (unlike oxygen), but both do act as a narcotic at high enough pressures. Even down here on Earth, that is a common problem for deep divers. So poisonous, no; potentially harmful, yes. However, looking at this specific ELW, the partial pressures of both argon and nitrogen are well within safe limits, so breathing the air should be fine.
On the other hand, divers would likely have problems breathing Chiggyworld's air at shallower depths than they would in case of Earth's air, as argon is more narcotic than nitrogen.
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As I understand it: the narcotic effect of gases other than noble gases becomes hazardous to health and well-being at atmospheric pressures above 5 atmospheres. Finding ELWs with pressures above 4 atmospheres is rare; the UC record for highest-pressure ELW is 4.21. I suspect 4.25 may be the hard limit for ELWs.
As for the oxygen content of that atmosphere, the partial pressure of oxygen is what they're looking at. At 2 atmospheres total pressure, you can halve the oxygen percentage and you'd be breathing the same amount of oxygen as you would be here on Earth. Chiggy's moon has 1.36 atmospheres, meaning 15% oxygen would be the equivalent of Earth-normal oxygen levels. 11.5% seems a little low (equivalent to 15.6% at Earth-normal pressures) but, the stellar forge seems to think, not fatally low.
As for the oxygen content of that atmosphere, the partial pressure of oxygen is what they're looking at. At 2 atmospheres total pressure, you can halve the oxygen percentage and you'd be breathing the same amount of oxygen as you would be here on Earth. Chiggy's moon has 1.36 atmospheres, meaning 15% oxygen would be the equivalent of Earth-normal oxygen levels. 11.5% seems a little low (equivalent to 15.6% at Earth-normal pressures) but, the stellar forge seems to think, not fatally low.
Humans can survive at 6% oxygen (in one atmosphere) but not well and probably not for very long. Anything below 19% is less than ideal and 16% is where you're really not getting enough. As you go below that then mental function is impaired and physical activity is harder. Dropping into the 10-14% range you get to where just lying down is physically exhausting as every cell in your body is screaming for more oxygen. So this one is wholly survivable but it wouldn't be a particularly nice place to live.
Moons are almost always low-metal, and often high-ice, since the base planet type for a habitable-zone moon is Rocky or Rocky-Ice rather then High Metal Content.
My favourites are still the ones like GreyAreaUK's 93% ice world with nitrogen magma volcanism. One wonders how the Earth-like environment is sustained when the planet's mantle seems to be made of nearly-pure liquid nitrogen.
My favourites are still the ones like GreyAreaUK's 93% ice world with nitrogen magma volcanism. One wonders how the Earth-like environment is sustained when the planet's mantle seems to be made of nearly-pure liquid nitrogen.
Ringed or not an ELW moon is a hell of a find, I envy your blind dumb luck chiggy. 
+1 virtual rep from me on it.
+1 virtual rep from me on it.
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After going quite a while without seeing a Gas Giant ELM, I found this a couple of days back...
Snap, I guess?
Looks like mine is slightly larger, but the higher amount of ice in composition means it has a tiny bit less gravity.
I think it was CMDR Marx who noted some time back that ELWs that have Argon in the atmosphere (almost) always have some portion of their composition as ice. Not sure why that should be the case, would love to glimpse 'under the bonnet' of the Stellar Forge...
Snap, I guess?
Looks like mine is slightly larger, but the higher amount of ice in composition means it has a tiny bit less gravity.
I think it was CMDR Marx who noted some time back that ELWs that have Argon in the atmosphere (almost) always have some portion of their composition as ice. Not sure why that should be the case, would love to glimpse 'under the bonnet' of the Stellar Forge...
Yeah, I've always been a bit fascinated with argon in the ELW atmospheres. I first discovered that it's possible back in 2015. Sept. - as far as I know, nobody posted about that before - and as more "argonic" ELWs were found, it didn't take long to notice that at high enough argon levels, ice starts to appear in surface compositions. If there's ice in an ELW's composition, there's always argon in its atmosphere. However, this isn't true the other way around.
As Sapyx has noted, moons tend to have more ice, but it's interesting to see ice turn up in regular planets too. I've always wondered what kind of ice it might be, and why exactly it appears to be tied to argon, what might be going on there.
Oh, and with Matt's find, it's eight gas giant ELMs and four of them have argon? Interesting.
As for atmospheric pressure records: the UC site is no longer updated, no? (Can't check the site due to some DNS errors.) There doesn't seem to be a hard-coded 4.25 atm limit: for example, Cloomoi QA-I C12-70 B 3 has 4.31 atm.
There are also terraformed ELWs which are well above 5 atm, going as far as even 7 atm - which, like Sapyx wrote, would be hazardous. However, terraformed ELWs appear to have much higher limits (if they even have limits!) than natural ELWs do, and frankly, their characteristics are often all over the place.
As Sapyx has noted, moons tend to have more ice, but it's interesting to see ice turn up in regular planets too. I've always wondered what kind of ice it might be, and why exactly it appears to be tied to argon, what might be going on there.
Oh, and with Matt's find, it's eight gas giant ELMs and four of them have argon? Interesting.
As for atmospheric pressure records: the UC site is no longer updated, no? (Can't check the site due to some DNS errors.) There doesn't seem to be a hard-coded 4.25 atm limit: for example, Cloomoi QA-I C12-70 B 3 has 4.31 atm.
There are also terraformed ELWs which are well above 5 atm, going as far as even 7 atm - which, like Sapyx wrote, would be hazardous. However, terraformed ELWs appear to have much higher limits (if they even have limits!) than natural ELWs do, and frankly, their characteristics are often all over the place.
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Slightly cooler than earth (by 7 Kelvin) and the Argon is denser than the Nitrogen/Oxygen mix so it would displace air at sea level. Oxy concentration is also low. You'd still need some kind of tightly sealed breather device. Axial tilt is a bit higher than earth, which combined with orbiting the gas giant would probably produce some spectacular weather due to the sun being blocked a lot...although the lack of greenhouse gasses in high concentration would probably blunt that effect (little to no heat retention).
Thinking about the lack of CO2 and CH4...It's interesting that the surface temp is that high. The primary is 29-ish light minutes out from the star. I would think there was some heating from the gas giant, which would make it more like Jupiter, which means the radiation coming off the primary would be quite high.
It'd be spectacular to see and the life that could evolve on something like that would be fascinating. Still though, bring a suit and a helmet.
Thinking about the lack of CO2 and CH4...It's interesting that the surface temp is that high. The primary is 29-ish light minutes out from the star. I would think there was some heating from the gas giant, which would make it more like Jupiter, which means the radiation coming off the primary would be quite high.
It'd be spectacular to see and the life that could evolve on something like that would be fascinating. Still though, bring a suit and a helmet.
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It's weird that argon seems to be tied to ice worlds. While argon is itself technically an "ice" (which is defined astronomically as "anything that's not solid at standard Earth temperature and pressure"), here on Earth, all our argon has apparently been derived from the radioactive decay of potassium-40 in the Earth's rock. So, logically, to get a high argon atmosphere, you should need to have lots of rock, and lots of time for all the K-40 in the rock to decay. The stellar forge apparently does not know this.
Yeah, but the Forge-generated argon is highly likely to come from elsewhere, due to them being present in likely much larger quantities than in Earth's atmosphere. I say "likely" because we don't actually have all the relevant data on planetary atmospheres (yet?), such as their mass. However, if(!) such quantities of argon generated on ELWs is not a bug (which it could very well be), then it might not come from kalium-40 beta decay, but likely from the parent star itself. I'd find it much more likely that the Forge would model the latter, but not the former.
Hm... I think I'll take a more detailed look at all those argon+ice ELWs. Although I'm thinking of just asking FD about them... or trying to, at least.
Oh, and I learned today that kalium is for some reason called potassium in English. That's pretty weird - but hey, live and learn.
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Potassium was first isolated from potash, hence potassium.
Indeed (dryio flyuae tx-u d2-928).
Also found myself an original Chiggy.
Still haven't found ringed binary ELWs with a close landable moon. However, will seek to remedy that flaw on next endeavor.
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I meant that it's weird that English uses different names for natrium and kalium - namely, sodium and potassium. Yet the symbol is the same, as you don't write Pot-40 (since P and Po are already taken), but K-40. Must be a bit inconvenient when studying chemistry or physics.
I knew about sodium before, but not potassium. There aren't any other instances of differing element names, are there?
A lot of chemical symbols come from Latin where the English name isn't from the Latin, e.g. Lead (Pb), Gold (Au), Silver (Ag). I don't know if other languages use words closer to the Latin (and so have happy children who don't have to try so hard to remember the symbols) or other things from completely different etymological roots.
It'll be the things we've known about for long enough and in lots of different places that they got different names just like eggs, trees, sheep or clouds did...
The symbols were agreed much later and designed to be internationally understandable so there's always going to be some languages that agree better with some symbols than others.
It'll be the things we've known about for long enough and in lots of different places that they got different names just like eggs, trees, sheep or clouds did...
The symbols were agreed much later and designed to be internationally understandable so there's always going to be some languages that agree better with some symbols than others.
Well, this is going off-topic now, so I'd just like to clear my remark up then move back to the argonic planets. I meant that in most other languages I'm aware of, Na and K are called natrium and kalium, and I was only aware of sodium, not potassium. Sure, there are the "old" metals that you mentioned (lead and such), but those were discovered and also frequently used in language much earlier than these two elements were. Also note how both sodium and potassium end with "-ium". As far as I'm aware, that's a suffix borrowed from New Latin, so both sets of words are from those.
However, having looked into this naming mix-up a bit more, I found this summary that goes into detail over the historic roots of these. Pretty curious, and especially how non-Germanic languages later also adopted natrium and such.
Back to argon+ice ELWs then: at first glance, looks like the majority of these are on the low end of the mass scale, hovering around 0.4 EM, and also mostly orbiting dim class M and K stars. This isn't an exclusive rule though: there are more massive ELWs with both argon and ice, and also found around brighter stars (like A and F). They appear to be more rare though. Plus then there are the ELMs, where the argon-bearing ones tend to be rather small too - like the Chiggyworld here. (I keep referring to it that way because the actual name is redacted for now.)
I'll try looking into the age of these systems, see if there's something there - but that'll take a bit of doing though, as the ELW list naturally doesn't include that.
However, having looked into this naming mix-up a bit more, I found this summary that goes into detail over the historic roots of these. Pretty curious, and especially how non-Germanic languages later also adopted natrium and such.
Back to argon+ice ELWs then: at first glance, looks like the majority of these are on the low end of the mass scale, hovering around 0.4 EM, and also mostly orbiting dim class M and K stars. This isn't an exclusive rule though: there are more massive ELWs with both argon and ice, and also found around brighter stars (like A and F). They appear to be more rare though. Plus then there are the ELMs, where the argon-bearing ones tend to be rather small too - like the Chiggyworld here. (I keep referring to it that way because the actual name is redacted for now.)
I'll try looking into the age of these systems, see if there's something there - but that'll take a bit of doing though, as the ELW list naturally doesn't include that.