Terraformable Aptmosphereless Moon

[CapitanAceRimmer]

Is this unique? It is certainly very unusual, I have never seen this anywhere before.
It is an aptmosphereless moon (kinda like Freshwater, Isle Of Wight) that is also a terraformable candidate:

Spoiler

 

[Tetched]

I too thought they did not exist, it turns out that I have scanned 11 terraformable bodies without atmosphere on my trip to Beagle Point in this thread. They are still quite rare (at least in my limited data set of scans).

 

[marx]

Not unique, but very rare. Congrats on your find!
As it turns out, in Elite terraforming tech is pretty much magical: a body doesn't even need to have an atmosphere to be considered a suitable candidate.

 

[Spaceman Si]

I found a surprisingly terraformable airless body last night too, I was really surprised to see that myself!

+rep for obscure reference to English sea-side town

 

[Sapyx]

In ED, altering the atmosphere is considered an engineering problem, not a laws-of-physics problem. Any atmospheric ingredients can be added or subtracted at will. The things that are not considered feasible engineering problems in ED are the planet's mass/gravity, and the planet's orbit.

In other words, any world within the Goldilocks Zone with a surface gravity between 0.4 and 2.0 Gs is considered "terraformable". It's present atmospheric composition is irrelevant.

The "rare" thing here is finding a moon with a high enough gravity, as most moons are much too small; even Earth's Moon is too small to terraform, you need something Mars-sized or bigger. That being said, it's even possible to find an Earth-like moon. Here's one I prepared earlier. Of the 80 or so ELWs I've found to date, three of them have been moons.

The only thing to watch is the Stellar Forge adds way too much "tidal heating" to moons. A moon orbiting an ELW or CFT isn't necessarily going to be a CFT as well; it might be "too hot". Likewise, don't assume a moon orbiting a planet that's too cold to be a CFT can't be a CFT either.

 

[Zeeman]

In ED, altering the atmosphere is considered an engineering problem, not a laws-of-physics problem. Any atmospheric ingredients can be added or subtracted at will. The things that are not considered feasible engineering problems in ED are the planet's mass/gravity, and the planet's orbit.

In other words, any world within the Goldilocks Zone with a surface gravity between 0.4 and 2.0 Gs is considered "terraformable". It's present atmospheric composition is irrelevant.

The "rare" thing here is finding a moon with a high enough gravity, as most moons are much too small; even Earth's Moon is too small to terraform, you need something Mars-sized or bigger. That being said, it's even possible to find an Earth-like moon. Here's one I prepared earlier. Of the 80 or so ELWs I've found to date, three of them have been moons.

The only thing to watch is the Stellar Forge adds way too much "tidal heating" to moons. A moon orbiting an ELW or CFT isn't necessarily going to be a CFT as well; it might be "too hot". Likewise, don't assume a moon orbiting a planet that's too cold to be a CFT can't be a CFT either.

Excellent summary, actually.

Basically, once something is in the Goldilocks zone, there's a chance for it to be a TFC. I think there may even be a goldilocks zone calculator out there, somewhere? Though, once you've been in the black long enough, you get a pretty good idea of where that zone is...

Z...

 

[iain666]

I think there may even be a goldilocks zone calculator out there, somewhere?

There are. My personal favourite is EDD - and not just because I implemented it but because it's possible to have it as an overlay to the game that appears when you scan the star.

I nicked the code for the actual goldilocks calculation from Jackie Silver's tool that also accounts for multiple stars.

 

[CapitanAceRimmer]

I use this as a guide:

However, it is only a rough guide.

 

[Spaceman Si]

There are. My personal favourite is EDD - and not just because I implemented it but because it's possible to have it as an overlay to the game that appears when you scan the star.

I nicked the code for the actual goldilocks calculation from Jackie Silver's tool that also accounts for multiple stars.

It does?? Wow, I haven't found that! Where is it?

EDD never ceases to amaze me with what it can do!

 

[iain666]

It does?? Wow, I haven't found that! Where is it?

It's an option on the Summary Panel - pop that out, make it transparent and always on top, configure to show scan info and bob's your uncle.

(It's always available in the System Panel too)