1. Is it even remotely plausible to have a very thin, tainted atmosphere on an ice moon without having large surface deposits of water ice? (hydro 0)
2. I'm assuming that tidal heating from the gas giant keep the core active and extensive cryovulcanism would account for the atmosphere. Is this reasonable? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryovolcano
3. Any ideas on how cold a planet should be before it drops from "almost breathable" to "exotic" atmosphere?
4. I'd also like some plausible reason for people to live here. I'm proposing that single-celled life has evolved here within the warmer layers (water? methane? ammonia?) closer to the core. When this organism dies, it forms layers, like coal seams that can be mined. The organic residue is used in pharmaceutical manufacture. Are there any obvious flaws with this?
Thanks in advance for any input.
Last modified February 4th, 2007, 12:21pm by Piper
I dont see any problem with that personally, if your unsure just make it an unknown people could be living there because there's no natural known cause of the free oxygen, i.e. a research base that's formed a colony. On earth oxygen is generated by algae in the sea and most plant life, thus a warm ocean full of algae covered with a thick layer of ice could see the ice cracking under pressure and geysers of oxygen shooting upwards to replenish the thin atmos.
The Children of Earth › General Boards › Star System and World Building › UWP feasibility questions (Moderators: , Commander Drax)
Author
UWP feasibility questions (currently 668 views)
Naval Architect
Logged
