Ammonia world without atmosphere

AstroValou · Sep 17, 2015

This is a strange world i found yesterday, an ammonia world without atmosphere. I didn't know that was possible:
Sorry, i only have screenshots in french...

So, i have two questions:

Did you find other worlds like this?

If this kind of world is possible, Will we land on it at the release of Horizons?

Fishy · Sep 17, 2015

AstroValou said:
If this kind of world is possible, Will we land on it at the release of Horizons?

No atmosphere, no volcanic activity, seems to be ticking the boxes yeah.

Serapo · Sep 17, 2015

Astrobiologist and astrophysicist needed to answer this question.
Seems odd to me, without atmosphere the radiation of the sun would pretty much sterilize the surface or the cold temperatures would freeze all biochemistry.

But for the game itself, no atmosphere means you should be able to land on it soonish. And that would be probably a very interesting place to land and rover about.

Katejina · Sep 17, 2015

I have found roughly 100 Ammonia Worlds so far. 3 or 4 of them have had no atmosphere. They are strangely more beautiful than the others, crisp, cleaner, clear. I was really hoping the "atmosphereless" bit of Horizons included them as well, lol. Sadly, that is not the case. I will certainly seek them out again, though, as the scenery must be amazing once planetside.

CMDR AKIRA MASAKARI · Sep 17, 2015

To my understanding in Horizon you will be able to land on rocky planets without atmosphere period. They will for sire extend to other planet types, but nonody knows when.

Katejina · Sep 17, 2015

CMDR AKIRA MASAKARI said:
To my understanding in Horizon you will be able to land on rocky planets without atmosphere period. They will for sire extend to other planet types, but nonody knows when.

Aye, I just had my hopes up. I have a handful of atmosphereless ammonia and water worlds in my spreadsheet, so I would have ran back to them immediately, especially so since a couple of the water worlds have islands.

Alas, not at the beginning. Hopefully they don't take too long to include more planet types!

Ian Phillips · Sep 17, 2015

Haven't FD recently confirmed 4 releases in Season 2?

And they have already stated that 4 planet types would be included in the Horizons season...

I'm adding 4 to 4 and getting 1 per release!

MarcusVatta · Sep 17, 2015

I read that initial launch of Horizons was Rocky, Rocky Ice, Ice World, and High Metal worlds, as long as they had no atmo or volcanism.

Could it be an ammonia world with a shell of ice over the ammonia? I mean, technically, most of the ice planets are technically water worlds with no atmo.

thehairymob · Sep 17, 2015

Nice find and one to keep an eye on for when they do allow us to land on more than rocky ice worlds

InMemoriamSirocco · Sep 17, 2015

View attachment 62868 View attachment 62869 View attachment 62870

To answer your question: Yes, I have come across such planets in my travels.

NotFragile · Sep 18, 2015

There are airless Water Worlds as well.

Mahrix · Sep 18, 2015

Yeah, I have come across a couple of these in my latest Journey's. The ones I have found was ringed also. I have yet to come across a ringed ammonia world that had an atmosphere.

Anchous · Sep 18, 2015

Katejina, nice new avatar)
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I see before 10 or more Ammonia worlds with life withot atmosphere. But dont know how its posible)

InMemoriamSirocco · Sep 18, 2015

Anchous said:
Katejina, nice new avatar)
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I see before 10 or more Ammonia worlds with life withot atmosphere. But dont know how its posible)

monocellular and even multicellular life on a microscopic level does not need an atmosphere to exist. There are organisms alive on this very planet of ours who can survive even in deep space.

Serapo · Sep 18, 2015

InMemoriamSirocco said:
monocellular and even multicellular life on a microscopic level does not need an atmosphere to exist. There are organisms alive on this very planet of ours who can survive even in deep space.

Survive as in enter a dormant state for many (thousands) years so that they can start up their metabolism again and start reproducing once the environment changes to warmer temperatures and a bit of liquid water. That does not mean that they could reproduce and thrive in deep space, as any organism would need to in a world without atmosphere? Unless of course beneath the surface of those planets there are actually some warmer spots safe from radiation were liquid ammonia and water would exist and so on.

That of course leads to the question, how did the detailed surface scanner detect such life from outer space in like 1 minute of scanning?
But ok, I am not knowledgeable enough in exo-biology and I am getting a bit facetious I guess.

marx · Sep 18, 2015

In my opinion, the beauty of ammonia worlds is that there's quite a wide range of them. I've seen a few ones without atmosphere as well, and one had a mountain range so high that you could see it protruding from orbit. Another planet had an atmosphere of mostly carbon-dioxide, and it was so hazy that I had to fly quite close to make out surface features.

@ Serapo: whatever life may be down there might only be simple organisms living in the soil. Of course, that still begs the question as to how exactly did the DSS detect that, but to be fair, that scanner picks up so much information in so short a time and from such distances that it is basically magical.
I do hope that this will be addressed in Horizons, and getting detailed scans will actually involve flying over areas. (Probably to pick up surface features, at least.) Not just pointing your ship at the pale dot in the distance and getting every information within a minute. Come December, we shall see.

iain666 · Sep 18, 2015

Life without an atmosphere is not a problem. The chemistry our bodies do with air can work equally well with liquid as a medium (cf fish), and there are extremophile bacteria which can get everything they need deep underground on earth, well away from all but traces of liquids and gases (whether a current, most likely in liquid, is necessary to start life on a planet is a different question but the answer is probably yes). Life in a vacuum or in deep space is a completely different proposition to life on a planet that lacks a significant gaseous layer.

A few centimetres of ground will give you as much protection from radiation as a few miles of atmosphere, so its absence is not a problem on that count.

Meanwhile our scanners run on pure handwavium.

Erimus Kamzel · Sep 18, 2015

AstroValou said:
This is a strange world i found yesterday, an ammonia world without atmosphere. I didn't know that was possible:
Sorry, i only have screenshots in french...

http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/450636Screenshot0474.png

http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/369806Screenshot0475.png

So, i have two questions:

Did you find other worlds like this?

If this kind of world is possible, Will we land on it at the release of Horizons?

I think they're quite rare. It would make a good tourism point of interest on the mapping thread

Definitely one for the 'to explore' list when Horizons is out!

Serapo · Sep 18, 2015

iain666 said:
Life without an atmosphere is not a problem. The chemistry our bodies do with air can work equally well with liquid as a medium (cf fish), and there are extremophile bacteria which can get everything they need deep underground on earth, well away from all but traces of liquids and gases (whether a current, most likely in liquid, is necessary to start life on a planet is a different question but the answer is probably yes). Life in a vacuum or in deep space is a completely different proposition to life on a planet that lacks a significant gaseous layer.

A few centimetres of ground will give you as much protection from radiation as a few miles of atmosphere, so its absence is not a problem on that count.

Meanwhile our scanners run on pure handwavium.

You work in an area related to space exploration or biology, I suppose?

Vasious · Dec 30, 2015

Can you have a quick look at your system map and confirm if it is a landfall planet or not please