Ammonia world with no atmosphere

Sooden

Sooden
Is this an error?

noatm.jpg

Can not land on it, I tried :p

Don't want to give it's name yet as it will be a while before i get to hand in the data. its a good 27K Lys from sol.

Added:

To clear things up. I'm wondering if the atmosphere is and error, not the land ability. i posted 'Can not land on it, I tried :p' in-case anyone was going to ask if i tried. Now that i read back my post, i can see the confusion - bad me :p
 
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InMemoriamSirocco

Banned
InMemoriamSirocco
Not an error. The first wave of landable planets were always supposed to be rocky, icey and metallic planets and moons without atmosphere, none other.
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
Neither Ammonia nor Water Worlds can be landed upon, even though both can be found with "no atmosphere". I'm assuming it's because they haven't figured out how our ships are going to interact with an "ocean" yet.
 

Sooden

Sooden
By error, i meant it having no atmosphere, i know its not meant to be land-able (i worded my post badly, was just heading out to work and rushed things). It should maybe have an icy shell? it has life on it.

So i wonder if its an error, or is there a way ammonia worlds can 'function' without an atmosphere or ice shell?

Added:

The planets surface is -132.15 °C (141K think I got that right) and Ammonia boils at −33.34 °C and liquid at -77.73 but that's at 1 earth pressure, so I don't know its it ice vapour or ice at −132.15 °C @ 0 Pressure, but I see no icy shell on the planet.

Gravity could also allow for a balance of zero air pressure and boiling rate (I think) but would expect an atmosphere.

And no stellar remnants bodies to cause atmosphere to be blown off,
system1.jpg

maybe A coronal mass ejection? or am i missing something here?
 
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CMDR Heisenberg B. Damned

CMDR Heisenberg B. Damned
SvennoJ said:
It's probably caused by gravity. The ones I found with no atmosphere are mostly huge. (and pretty cold)
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Which in itself is odd as high G planets would hold onto any gasses they picked up when forming far more tenaciously than smaller planets. Although I have landed on an almost 10 G planet with no atmosphere - so go figure!
 

InMemoriamSirocco

Banned
InMemoriamSirocco
Sooden said:
By error, i meant it having no atmosphere, i know its not meant to be land-able (i worded my post badly, was just heading out to work and rushed things). It should maybe have an icy shell? it has life on it.
Click to expand...


It IS a bit odd. An ammonia world that has no ammonia on it? If it has oceans (and you can clearly see it has large brown oceans) and life, it should also have an atmosphere. Life forms usually produce gases. Gravity is strong enough to hold an atmosphere, too...

Only thing I can imagine is a very strong solar flare hitting the planet, going through the magnetic field despite its strength and blowing off what atmosphere the planet had.

Still doesn't explain the absence of ammonia in the composition of the planet, though.... I think this is a stellar forge error.
 

Pirin

Pirin
InMemoriamSirocco said:
It IS a bit odd. An ammonia world that has no ammonia on it? If it has oceans (and you can clearly see it has large brown oceans) and life, it should also have an atmosphere. Life forms usually produce gases. Gravity is strong enough to hold an atmosphere, too...

Only thing I can imagine is a very strong solar flare hitting the planet, going through the magnetic field despite its strength and blowing off what atmosphere the planet had.

Still doesn't explain the absence of ammonia in the composition of the planet, though.... I think this is a stellar forge error.
Click to expand...

If it is an error, it is not the only one :)

HR - Phaa Audst TZ-N d7-53a.jpg
 

schizrade

S
A Flare or CME is not strong enough to strip a magnetic field protected planet like Earth of its atmosphere. They regularly strip the moon of any volatiles laying around as it has no Magnetosphere. These ammonia planets probably lack magnetospheres to retain atmospheres. Note the SS from Pirin that planet has no volcanism, which means it is probably cold like Mars.

Remember retaining atmosphere is not a function of gravity.
 

Pirin

Pirin
aRottenKomquat said:
That planet has a temperature of only 102 Kelvin. I don't recall the freezing/boiling points of common gases, but on that planet is it possible any atmosphere simply froze or liquified?

OP's planet is a bit warmer at 141 Kelvin.
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I think on both planets ammonia should be frozen. It is way too cold for gas or liquid. Probably the explanation is rather simple: Jupiter's moon Europa. No atmosphere, surface is covered by tick layer of ice. But at some depth the water is liquid. And - and least theoretically - life could exist there. So we could have a layer of frozen ammonia on the surface and liquid with life forms beneath it.
 

iain666

iain666
InMemoriamSirocco said:
Still doesn't explain the absence of ammonia in the composition of the planet, though.... I think this is a stellar forge error.
Click to expand...

That's not particularly odd, planet composition is just ice/rock/metal percentages for all planets. There's no hydrocarbon content listed for Earth but that's what we're made of.

No atmosphere, frozen surface, liquid ocean below the ice, water-ammonia based life in the same ocean (with perhaps some kind of algal analogue to give the surface its brown colour although that's not necessarily biogenic), ammonia wouldn't be listed in the planet composition. If there was an atmosphere it might include ammonia - but it could easily be outside the top three gases (all we get) and still not show up. Our atmosphere doesn't feature any hydrocarbons in the top 3 constituents (even if carbon does show up in 3rd place).

Any biogenic gas production could well be trapped in/below the surface ice.
 
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