Hi,
Why doesn't Mars (in Sol system) have two moons? (Phobos and Deimos)
Thanks.
--JoeD
Why doesn't Mars (in Sol system) have two moons? (Phobos and Deimos)
Thanks.
--JoeD
Mars moons?
- Thread starter JoeDavidson456
- Start date
It might in the future, but because they are so small they would need to be hand crafted by FDEV, on the other hand the inhabitants of mars may have moved them out of the way because they were a hazard to ships taking off and landing, I will have to check the lore to see if it says anything about the moons of mars.
If I was T Forming Mars I'd add them to the mass of the planet to increase gravity.
At 6.2km and 12km radius they wouldn't add much, however if you dropped them in the right spot you could break into the underground salt water deposits and spill them across the landscape and increase the atmosphere humidity, of course you could also just bombard the planet with icy asteroids from the Oort cloud or elsewhere, a number of ways, but in any case the moons are really to small to be of any serious use except as maybe a temporary base while teraforming. I believe thay are also supposed to be fairly fragile so hollowing them out and using them as a habitat is also not likely to be a serious proposition. They really are just junk moons!
I'd start with the moons but I'd reach further afield to bulk up Mars. It's puny mass is one of it's big issues. I'd probably also look for high metal rocks to add to it's core and see if I could kick that back into motion. Things I could do if I was a Bond villain....
The problem is finding them, the entire asteroid belt makes up about 4% of earths moon, finding enough free high metal rocks to make even 1% difference in mars gravity would be a problem, and also why on earth would you dump them on a planet when they would be far more valuable broken up and used to build things like ships, star ports and etc. No I am afraid you are stuck with ice, far more of that around and easily accessible, and once you increase the density of the martian atmosphere to start a greenhouse effect you are all apples there. It would need constant feeding of course, mars gravity isn't strong enough to maintain a dense atmosphere without help, but increasing gravity is probably not needed.
Basically, they're the wrong size. Most of the gas giant moons in Sol are missing for similar reasons.
The current Elite Dangerous model can't represent as a planetary body anything smaller than about 100km radius - and you get some slightly odd behaviours with orbital cruise and the SRV when you get close to that.
Phobos and Deimos are much smaller than that - but they're also about ten times larger than the largest structures, so treating them just like a bigger asteroid model would also have difficulties..
Hopefully it's on Frontier's list to make medium-sized objects work - we know they want to include comets, for example.
The current Elite Dangerous model can't represent as a planetary body anything smaller than about 100km radius - and you get some slightly odd behaviours with orbital cruise and the SRV when you get close to that.
Phobos and Deimos are much smaller than that - but they're also about ten times larger than the largest structures, so treating them just like a bigger asteroid model would also have difficulties..
Hopefully it's on Frontier's list to make medium-sized objects work - we know they want to include comets, for example.
I would suggest (as I read in one story) the larger moon is used as a space station (rather than building one), as it is already in orbit and of a useful size. Maybe the smaller moon could have been used up for its resources.
Actually it's exactly 137km in radius, there no procedurally generated body or object below that size.
I believe the latest theories of the makeup of the moons is that they are rather loose agglomerations of material, with a body of that size with microgravity you would either need to anchor to the surface or burrow below it, the make up may not allow for either possibilty.
Fascinating discussion. And I guess since ED terraformed Mars, all options are possible. I guess I'm old-school, and like it when ED models the real Milky Way as much as possible. For example, I love that they use real star databases (HIP, etc) -- and while I haven't looked, I hope they place each real star in the correct position. Also, now that exo-planet data is rolling in, I hope ED places the real exo-planets in the real places. Basically, I want my astronomy software (Stellarium) and ED's Galaxy Map to align as much as possible.
Thanks everyone for your comments.
Thanks everyone for your comments.
To add Mars is also the most developed planet in the Galaxy, having strip mined them and otherwise disposed of them or repurposed them is a real possibility.