Just landed on a planet with an atmosphere

Thorberg Shavestroke · May 13, 2018

Hyades Sector IB-W b2-6 A 3 a. The journal entry says no atmosphere, but there clearly is an atmosphere. Here is the journal entry:

{ "timestamp":"2018-05-13T16:37:31Z", "event":"Scan", "ScanType":"Detailed", "BodyName":"Hyades Sector IB-W b2-6 A 3 a", "BodyID":27, "Parents":[ {"Null":26}, {"Planet":25}, {"Star":1}, {"Null":0} ], "DistanceFromArrivalLS":1183.116211, "TidalLock":true, "TerraformState":"", "PlanetClass":"Icy body", "Atmosphere":"", "AtmosphereType":"None", "Volcanism":"major water geysers volcanism", "MassEM":0.000285, "Radius":582241.500000, "SurfaceGravity":0.335504, "SurfaceTemperature":43.765896, "SurfacePressure":0.000000, "Landable":true, "Materials":[ { "Name":"sulphur", "Percent":27.813578 }, { "Name":"carbon", "Percent":23.388336 }, { "Name":"phosphorus", "Percent":14.973615 }, { "Name":"iron", "Percent":12.577046 }, { "Name":"nickel", "Percent":9.512751 }, { "Name":"selenium", "Percent":4.353060 }, { "Name":"zinc", "Percent":3.417971 }, { "Name":"zirconium", "Percent":1.460454 }, { "Name":"tellurium", "Percent":0.936125 }, { "Name":"molybdenum", "Percent":0.821274 }, { "Name":"tin", "Percent":0.745795 } ], "Composition":{ "Ice":0.824624, "Rock":0.159549, "Metal":0.015828 }, "SemiMajorAxis":1090278.125000, "Eccentricity":0.078854, "OrbitalInclination":-1.252094, "Periapsis":91.986122, "OrbitalPeriod":47924.828125, "RotationPeriod":69907.195313, "AxialTilt":-0.436046 }

marx · May 13, 2018

Hey, that's a lot of the fog that's supposed to be thin and localised. Has the Stellar Forge been drinking perhaps?

CMDR ANCALAGON · May 13, 2018

I've run across a few ice and Rocky ice world's that were largely covered in fog like that.

Nice find!

Sapyx · May 14, 2018

It's not technically "atmosphere". It's electrostatically-charged dust (or, in the case of an ice world like this, finely crushed snow) which is kept suspended above the surface, despite the lack of atmosphere, by the combination of electrostatic forces, minor ground quakes and the relatively low local gravity.

Being electrostatic, it does tend to "stick" onto the cockpit canopy and any remote camera optical surfaces, making the "haze" look much thicker than it actually is.

Yes, I am making this up as I go along. Why do you ask?

Qohen Leth · May 14, 2018

That is cooooooooool, gotta grab ma mates and go there. Should we organize a little public jaunt?

space voyager · May 14, 2018

I have to admit Federal Corvette looks phenomenal in this fog... Now find those water geysers, park it next to those and take a photo session!

BTW, where can I find this journal? EDIT: Not your journal, mine.

Friedenreich Xante · May 14, 2018

Sapyx said:
It's not technically "atmosphere". It's electrostatically-charged dust (or, in the case of an ice world like this, finely crushed snow) which is kept suspended above the surface, despite the lack of atmosphere, by the combination of electrostatic forces, minor ground quakes and the relatively low local gravity.

Being electrostatic, it does tend to "stick" onto the cockpit canopy and any remote camera optical surfaces, making the "haze" look much thicker than it actually is.

Yes, I am making this up as I go along. Why do you ask?

I've read somewhere else that it's actually fog and the thickness depends of the time of the day. IIRC the fogs appear mainly at dusk or dawn. Though here it rather Looks like deep night.

Qohen Leth · May 14, 2018

space voyager said:
I have to admit Federal Corvette looks phenomenal in this fog... Now find those water geysers, park it next to those and take a photo session!

BTW, where can I find this journal? EDIT: Not your journal, mine.

%User%\Saved Games\Frontier or sthg.

Henkka77 · May 14, 2018

We had couple of those as DECE basecamps and the first one got even an mention in Down To Earth Astronomy's "Worth a Visit"-videoseries.

[video=youtube;PmRodOTOpAE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmRodOTOpAE[/video]

Limoncello Lizard · May 14, 2018

Henkka77 said:
We had couple of those as DECE basecamps and the first one got even an mention in Down To Earth Astronomy's "Worth a Visit"-videoseries.

That's not fog. It's spittle from CMDRs trying to pronounce the name of the place.

Winterwalker · May 14, 2018

"Volatiles" .. visit the same valleys at night or in sunlight and the fogs come and go.

One great, moody, reppable pic -->

Thorberg Shavestroke said:

Thorberg Shavestroke · May 14, 2018

space voyager said:
I have to admit Federal Corvette looks phenomenal in this fog... Now find those water geysers, park it next to those and take a photo session!

BTW, where can I find this journal? EDIT: Not your journal, mine.

Thanks! I hunted for the geysers, going to look again today! My journal is located here: C:\Users\Thorberg\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous

Thorberg Shavestroke · May 14, 2018

OK, so I found some geysers on this moon!!! But, alas, on the other side of the moon with no fog. Anyway, here is the location if you want to visit: Hyades Sector IB-W B2-6. Moon: A 3 a. Coordinates: 0.6352 -108.9678.

The sister moon also has major volcanism, I'm looking there too!

Iskariot · May 14, 2018

Thorberg Shavestroke said:
Hyades Sector IB-W b2-6 A 3 a. The journal entry says no atmosphere, but there clearly is an atmosphere. Here is the journal entry:

{ "timestamp":"2018-05-13T16:37:31Z", "event":"Scan", "ScanType":"Detailed", "BodyName":"Hyades Sector IB-W b2-6 A 3 a", "BodyID":27, "Parents":[ {"Null":26}, {"Planet":25}, {"Star":1}, {"Null":0} ], "DistanceFromArrivalLS":1183.116211, "TidalLock":true, "TerraformState":"", "PlanetClass":"Icy body", "Atmosphere":"", "AtmosphereType":"None", "Volcanism":"major water geysers volcanism", "MassEM":0.000285, "Radius":582241.500000, "SurfaceGravity":0.335504, "SurfaceTemperature":43.765896, "SurfacePressure":0.000000, "Landable":true, "Materials":[ { "Name":"sulphur", "Percent":27.813578 }, { "Name":"carbon", "Percent":23.388336 }, { "Name":"phosphorus", "Percent":14.973615 }, { "Name":"iron", "Percent":12.577046 }, { "Name":"nickel", "Percent":9.512751 }, { "Name":"selenium", "Percent":4.353060 }, { "Name":"zinc", "Percent":3.417971 }, { "Name":"zirconium", "Percent":1.460454 }, { "Name":"tellurium", "Percent":0.936125 }, { "Name":"molybdenum", "Percent":0.821274 }, { "Name":"tin", "Percent":0.745795 } ], "Composition":{ "Ice":0.824624, "Rock":0.159549, "Metal":0.015828 }, "SemiMajorAxis":1090278.125000, "Eccentricity":0.078854, "OrbitalInclination":-1.252094, "Periapsis":91.986122, "OrbitalPeriod":47924.828125, "RotationPeriod":69907.195313, "AxialTilt":-0.436046 }

https://imgur.com/o2b3mKd

https://imgur.com/zrBqpyx

https://imgur.com/G6ctgQ3

I just love those pictures.
Have not encountered something like that myself.

It would be cool if some huge alien creature was stalking through that fog.

Qohen Leth · May 14, 2018

I'm right there right now, there's zero mist.

EDIT: there is mist on the dayside, but much less. As OP suggested, the gas giants was eclipsing the sun when the screenshots were taken, so that made the mist much thicker and denser.

AndrewA · May 14, 2018

I saw same fog in big ejecta crater.

Thorberg Shavestroke · May 14, 2018

Qohen Leth said:
I'm right there right now, there's zero mist.

EDIT: there is mist on the dayside, but much less. As OP suggested, the gas giants was eclipsing the sun when the screenshots were taken, so that made the mist much thicker and denser.

Qohen Leth, thanks so much for helping me try to solve this mystery. Here is a screenshot of the eclipse with the fog, and the screenshot filename with the timestamp: Elite - Dangerous (CLIENT) 5_13_2018 10_49_01 AM.png. Elite time, so should be zulu time.

Qohen Leth · May 14, 2018

So, 0.6D orbital period for the moon, so about 14.5 hours. If the screenie has been taken at 11:00 (in game time/UTC) yesterday, there should have been another eclipse at 1:30 the next day or so, again at 16:00, and the next one should be around 6:30 tomorrow morning, then 21:00 UTC tomorrow evening

Please check my maths

Thorberg Shavestroke · May 14, 2018

Qohen Leth said:
So, 0.6D orbital period for the moon, so about 14.5 hours. If the screenie has been taken at 11:00 (in game time/UTC) yesterday, there should have been another eclipse at 1:30 the next day or so, again at 16:00, and the next one should be around 6:30 tomorrow morning, then 21:00 UTC tomorrow evening Please check my maths

EDIT: I just realized that the time stamp reflects local time for me (10:48pm MDT), which should be Zulu -6 hours - so it last eclipsed at 04:48z this morning.

I came up with orbital period of 13.312 hours (13h 18m 43s) based on OrbitalPeriod:47924.828125 from the journal (which is expressed in seconds). I just divided it by 3600 to convert to hours. If this is correct, we should have an eclipse at 18:07z, which is in about 17 minutes. But this isn't right, because I'm at this moon right now and the parent planet is nowhere near eclipse. This must be the moon's orbit around each other. We are going to need help from someone with more brainpower than I have.

Here is what it looks like right now:

Qohen Leth · May 14, 2018

Heheh. W3lcome to the world of n3rds.

You're probably closer to the right time, I just used the value on the sysmap, which is *obviously* very broad. So, the next after that should be at 16:00 tomorrow? Argh, that's not good.