Gas giant with life orbiting a black hole.
Life without a star
- Thread starter SirAdelaide
- Start date
Nice find.
Gas giant heat is calculated from the blackbody temperature at their orbit (in this case, zero) modified by their albedo (0.35), and then an extra amount is added on based on their mass - IIRR off the top of my head, it's 0.02 * (mass of the gas giant in Earth masses)^1.3
(edit - which comes out as 221K in this case, so the formula is definitely off slightly - I need to go to one of these systems and check it out carefully!)
I haven't seen any significant variation from that in the case of life-bearing gas giants but there's usual a couple of degrees error between prediction and "reality" so it would be difficult to pick up a small variation, definitely worth checking. Occasionally life-bearing gas giants have a small amount of oxygen in their atmospheres which could make a difference.
Gas giant heat is calculated from the blackbody temperature at their orbit (in this case, zero) modified by their albedo (0.35), and then an extra amount is added on based on their mass - IIRR off the top of my head, it's 0.02 * (mass of the gas giant in Earth masses)^1.3
(edit - which comes out as 221K in this case, so the formula is definitely off slightly - I need to go to one of these systems and check it out carefully!)
I haven't seen any significant variation from that in the case of life-bearing gas giants but there's usual a couple of degrees error between prediction and "reality" so it would be difficult to pick up a small variation, definitely worth checking. Occasionally life-bearing gas giants have a small amount of oxygen in their atmospheres which could make a difference.
Last edited:
Weird find, nice one.
234K is quite warm relatively speaking.
Did you have to put your lights on?
234K is quite warm relatively speaking.
Did you have to put your lights on?
Yep.
Additionally, there is a fair amount of life on earth that would go on living if the Sun disappeared. Plenty of volcanism and geochemistry to provide energy and nutrients.
Gravity and radioactive decay. The core of Jupiter is several times hotter than the surface of the sun.
Today I learned! 
Awesome guys
Awesome guys