Stellar Forge - Is it accurate? Here is a chart showing how the elements formed aka Nucleo-synthesis

[Colonel Kenney]

Stellar Forge - Is it accurate? Here is a chart showing how the elements formed aka Nucleo-synthesis

There are so many other variables to take into account. I'm sure this has been debated to death and also has changed over the years. But does the Stellar Forge follow this formula?

 

[Lecitron]

I can affirm that i don´t know but i glad to know it.

 

[Ian Phillips]

No Idea. Why don't you do a bit of research into the Elite Dangerous stars and then there might be a basis from which to talk about it?

 

[Saool]

The fact that we have Star Sausages in game, and that Thor's Helmet is 3000Ly away, not 3000 Parsecs away as it really is, says it's not totally accurate. It is however a fantastic bit of work non the less.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Me, who had difficulty understanding the Stellar Forge, and well, now everything is clear

 

[Sapyx]

Out here in the real world, all 94 of those elements occur on pretty much every planet, it's only the ratios that change (more metal on the inner planets, more gases and ices on the outer planets). So if you look hard enough, here on Earth you will eventually find an atom or two of technetium (there are about a trillion of them out there at any one time, though they're radioactive, so they don't stay in any one place for very long).

In the ED universe, planets have a fixed list of elements that can be found there, and no amount of searching will ever come up with any of the other elements on that planet. While a neighbouring planet will have a completely different list of elements. So there's one major difference between the two universes in terms of elemental composition.

The stellar forge will follow the basic premise that is reflected in the chart: that older stars will have fewer heavy metallic elements than younger stars, because the younger stars are forming out of the gas clouds that have been contaminated by the older stars exploding and releasing those elements.

But in terms of specifically tying element probability to star type, no, I seriously doubt the stellar forge has that programmed into it. You won't find that finding niobium is more common than arsenic in red giant systems but it's the other way around in neutron star systems, for example.

 

[Kaocraft]

I dunno but I keep seeing ice planets with "surface temperature" listed as being in the 400-500K range; so something probably isn't quite right there.

 

[Vasco Sapien]

There are so many other variables to take into account. I'm sure this has been debated to death and also has changed over the years. But does the Stellar Forge follow this formula?

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1710/Nucleosynthesis2_WikipediaCmglee_2000.jpg

Are you questioning the distribution of elements (mined and extracted for engineers) in relation to local sources?

The chemical composition of a star system typically depends on the matter cloud that the system accretes from and that cloud depends upon the age, size, class and generation of the star which exploded/dissipated before hand to determine its element zoo ratios.

For the sake of a game, Stella forge would need to think back a stella generation before rendering the galaxy seen in the game.

I understand where elements come from and how they are created but i can honestly say that its never been a factor for me in ED whether or not the elements found and there ratios seem appropriate for the setting.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

So if you look hard enough, here on Earth you will eventually find an atom or two of technetium (there are about a trillion of them out there at any one time, though they're radioactive, so they don't stay in any one place for very long).

Yet technetium is routinely used in medicine. It has to be made from molybdenum.

 

[Apos]

I dunno but I keep seeing ice planets with "surface temperature" listed as being in the 400-500K range; so something probably isn't quite right there.

Nothing inherently wrong with that. If we were talking about pure ice, in 1 atm of pressure, sure, there would be a problem there.

 

[Kaocraft]

Are you saying that ice can stay frozen at 500K because it's in vacuum? I admit I'm no expert but that doesn't seem right.

 

[Apos]

Are you saying that ice can stay frozen at 500K because it's in vacuum? I admit I'm no expert but that doesn't seem right.

Nah, vacuum is irrelevant.

Water in itself will have its properties altered based on impurities. Simplest example, salted water has much lower freezing point. This can work both ways.

Simplest reference example, Salt:

On top of that, every material will have its properties altered based on temperature, pressure and volume in closed systems. Now, someone might think of space as an open system and that is true, but gravity alone and even further the presence of an atmosphere and pressure will also create behaviour that can be treated as a closed system.

Once again, simplest reference example, Vapor curve:

Add all of these together with more complex minerals, gravity,atmosphere densities and the unique property of some materials (including and especially water) to expand in volume when frozen and things can get really insane and we'd require some really in-depth expertise to deduce whether one of those icy planets is possible or not.

I'm not saying that ALL of those icy planets with high temperatures are correct though. Just that some of them can be.

 

[c3shooter]

I agree that 400k ice body sounds unusual, however:

Lets not forget most of what is being discussed here is water, and you can't simply say that because water freezes/boils at a given temp/press, that all elements/compounds/etc do...Hence why there is liquid far out in our solar system, it's not water. Pressure makes it even more difficult to relate to, as many people (myself included) relate to those terms at our given pressure.

Language could also be playing tricks on you. We use the term ice, gas, liquid, solid, sublimate, etc. to describe things, but in the real continuum of physical states they aren't always "exact" terms. There are more than just the 3 or 4 states of matter you might remember, (I haven't kept track but I think we are over 10 now...) and some of those definitions aren't terribly "different" in my mind, then we go back and try to apply a term like "ice" to them.

Obviously this is not my strong suit of science here, (Biology guy) but perhaps it helps.
and props to Apos, for helping me relive the nightmare of the required college chemistry classes, I swear I remember one of those graphs...

 

[Suvi Anwar]

I dunno but I keep seeing ice planets with "surface temperature" listed as being in the 400-500K range; so something probably isn't quite right there.

400-500k = 260-440f (126-226c). Depending on what type of elements are found in an ice body, those temperatures are generally well above the boiling point for most light elements. Though pressure can be used to increase or decrease the boiling point for an element, it is not possible to have an ICE body that has an average temperature higher than the point where the base element becomes solid. When talking about "ice", in science it is a term for water when it has reached a temperature where it becomes solid(frozen). On the other hand, the term "frozen" is generally used for any light element that reaches a temperature where it becomes solid. The only bodies that could be considered frozen at temperatures of 200f or higher would be heavy element bodies, but we don't consider them frozen.

 

[JMLCarter]

Planetary scientists often classify volatiles with exceptionally low melting points, such as hydrogen and helium, as gases (as in gas giant), whereas those volatiles with melting points above about 100 K (–173 °C, –280 °F) are referred to as ices. The terms "gas" and "ice" in this context can apply to compounds that may be solids, liquids or gases. Thus, Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants, and Uranus and Neptune are ice giants, even though the vast majority of the "gas" and "ice" in their interiors is a hot, highly dense fluid that gets denser as the center of the planet is approached.

It's a bit odd, I know, but there we are.

 

[Sapyx]

From the point of view of a planetologist, "ice" is defined as "anything that's solid on the planet I'm looking at, which is not solid at Earth-laboratory-standard conditions (298 K and 1 atmosphere pressure)." Given that there are only three kinds of matter on solid planets in ED (metal, rock and ice) I'd assume ED agrees with this definition. Ammonium chloride, therefore, is not "ice", but "rock", because it melts at 640 K, whereas pure ammonia is "ice", because it melts at 195 K.

The point is, it certainly is possible to have "ice", even water ice, that is solid at 400K... provided there's enough atmospheric pressure to keep it solid. But it's a physical impossibility for something to be a liquid or gas at 298 K here on Earth, and be a solid at 400K in a vacuum. No known substance in the universe freezes as it gets warmer and the pressure drops; that would violate the second law of thermodynamics. You need pressure to create ice at 400K, and gravity alone cannot create that pressure. You need an atmosphere.

ED is usually pretty good at generating planetary surface conditions that comply with the laws of physics. But they do have a tendency to break down when the stellar forge creates a planet with the "atmosphere = NONE" switch.

 

[Kaocraft]

From the point of view of a planetologist, "ice" is defined as "anything that's solid on the planet I'm looking at, which is not solid at Earth-laboratory-standard conditions (298 K and 1 atmosphere pressure)." Given that there are only three kinds of matter on solid planets in ED (metal, rock and ice) I'd assume ED agrees with this definition. Ammonium chloride, therefore, is not "ice", but "rock", because it melts at 640 K, whereas pure ammonia is "ice", because it melts at 195 K.

The point is, it certainly is possible to have "ice", even water ice, that is solid at 400K... provided there's enough atmospheric pressure to keep it solid. But it's a physical impossibility for something to be a liquid or gas at 298 K here on Earth, and be a solid at 400K in a vacuum. No known substance in the universe freezes as it gets warmer and the pressure drops; that would violate the second law of thermodynamics. You need pressure to create ice at 400K, and gravity alone cannot create that pressure. You need an atmosphere.

ED is usually pretty good at generating planetary surface conditions that comply with the laws of physics. But they do have a tendency to break down when the stellar forge creates a planet with the "atmosphere = NONE" switch.

Yeah that makes sense. So I wonder if the Stellar Forge is working a bit backwards, then. Rather than generating a planet and determining whether or not it should have an atmosphere, it decides on atmosphere first and then generates the other details of the planet?

 

[Aussiedroid]

How do we know if that periodic table is accurate to compare to the Stellar Forge version? I guess how will we ever know for sure...

 

[c3shooter]

So decided to check it out, and it appears there are now 26 (including theoretical) states of matter now....just in case anyone was wondering.

Icy is not any of them.

I think that Stellar forge was really a rough approximation, with enough easy to locate details thrown in, but procedural generation probably made some things wrong, for many reasons I am sure. It wasn't ever meant to be a astronomical model of professional quality, But it is still cool!